


tripping over you

by bropunzeling



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fraternity, Hockey Big Bang, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 12:34:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 50,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2652245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bropunzeling/pseuds/bropunzeling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey,” he hears as he inspects the house letters, which probably should be repainted, and he turns to find Geno sitting on one of the porch couches passed from generation to generation of Phis, his long legs stretched out and aviators sliding down his nose.</p><p>“Hey Geno,” Sid says back, and Geno smiles.</p><p>[A year in the life of Sidney Crosby, Frat President.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. fall

**Author's Note:**

> it takes a frat to throw a kegger. thanks to: twentysomething, whose idea this was and who bugged me until it became actuality; to nebulia, who agreed to read the drafts of this back when i thought it'd be 15k and who lovingly beta'd my emotional arcs into submission; to chibirhm, who not only let me complain to her almost daily about how long this fic got, but also beta'd it like a champ. finally, biggest thanks to radioaches, who did the aH-MAY-ZING art for me; please please please enjoy their work and give them sO MUCH LOVE.
> 
> as a frat au, this has a lot of references to alcohol and somewhat to weed -- please stay safe, bros.
> 
> title from "take it or leave it" by cage the elephant.
> 
> [radioaches' mix](https://8tracks.com/didoxidate/songs-to-drink-dance-to)
> 
> (bonus art from radioaches: [geno's very important cat video playlist](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpQJn8M8KCn2oNBUqD676RZIhuZpl5SX1))

Sid drives back to campus on a bright, sunny Friday, duffel bag tossed in the backseat and the radio on as loud as it’ll go. It’s the first time he’s made the trip solo – his freshman year, the whole family drove down together, and last year he caught a ride with some senior, listening to awful alt-country and trying not to cringe too much into the rearview mirror.

This time around, he has the windows down, arm out to catch some of the sun and knock-off Wayfarers pushed up his nose. Taylor made him a driving playlist before he left, handing it over right after extracting a promise that maybe she could come visit him, if she wanted. There’s a lot of One Direction on the mix CD, but Sid doesn’t really mind, and he maybe sings along to some, or okay, all of it. Besides, if he sings every part of _Best Song Ever_ , only the stereo can hear him.

The last couple of miles into town are some of the prettiest, all the fields golden under the sun and the occasional windmill spinning in the breeze. Going to school in the middle of fucking nowhere can suck sometimes, but right now Sid thinks it’s worth it just for the view, just him and the highway and the hills.

Finally he reaches the exit, hitting the brakes hard to avoid the one police officer who hangs out by Second, and debates getting groceries before deciding that hitting up Safeway wouldn’t be worth it. Instead he takes the turn to drive down Greek Row, dodging the freshmen and their parents walking around campus who apparently don’t believe in crosswalks and a herd of bikers riding down the street.

It takes a stupid amount of time but he finally makes it to the parking lot right behind Phi, parking next to Nealer’s shitty pick-up and stretching his legs a little before grabbing his bag out of the back. The back door is probably open, but instead he walks around the house, taking in the plants slowly trying to climb up the walls and the way one of the third-floor windows is ajar, Avicii floating down from the room beyond.

“Hey,” he hears as he inspects the house letters, which probably should be repainted, and he turns to find Geno sitting on one of the porch couches passed from generation to generation of Phis, his long legs stretched out and aviators sliding down his nose.

“Hey Geno,” Sid says back, and Geno smiles.

“Sid,” he says, stretching back so the hem of his t-shirt rides up, exposing a sliver of skin. “You need help?”

“Nope,” Sid replies, shaking his head so he stops staring at Geno’s stomach and walking up the porch steps. “This is it.”

“Pack light,” Geno says, standing up and leaving the ancient porch couch to open the door. “Good drive out?”

“Yeah,” Sid says, looking up at where the porch ceiling is sagging slightly and at the dart still shoved into one of the crossbeams that no one’s been able to dig out. “Good to be back, though.”

“Good to have you back,” Geno replies, letting Sid pass before following him in.

-

That night, they have the first all-frat dinner of the semester, half what Chef Dana whips up and half some shit Paulie’s thrown together in the three hours since he’s gotten back to the house. All of it tastes amazing, though, and Sid eats a whole plate of sandwiches and some kind of potato thing in between asking the guys how their summers have gone. Geno talks about doing research on campus like he hasn’t been texting Sid from the lab the whole summer, and Paulie talks about his internship at some publishing house, and Flower laughs off his time working at his local grocery store.

“It’s sick, man – you have to like, break the chicken’s legs just to get them to cross fancily, and then you like, pour the blood out of the plastic bags. It’s like a horror movie or some shit,” he says through a mouthful of potato salad, the occasional chunk falling out back onto his plate.

“You’re disgusting,” Sid tells him, wrinkling his nose.

Flower just laughs, spraying Sid with more food. “Aw, come on, you missed me, Mr. President,” he says, wrapping an arm around Sid’s shoulders and yanking him in. “You totally were lonesome, all alone in the wilds of Nova Scotia.”

“I wasn’t alone,” Sid replies, pushing back on Flower’s arm, even though it’s useless, because Flower has a grip of iron.

“Not alone! Did our president find a summer fling?” Flower shakes him a little, grinning at the rest of the table. Duper and James both laugh, but Paulie just stares blandly back at Flower, while Geno doesn’t really do anything at all.

“No,” Sid protests, and he’s even mostly telling the truth about it.

“You sure? You wouldn’t hide something like that from one of your brothers, would you?” Flower pulls Sid in even closer with the elbow he has hooked around Sid’s neck.

“Pretty positive,” Sid replies, finally managing to get Flower to relinquish his grip and allow him to sit up.

“Well, that’s too bad. By which I mean sad. Really sad.” Flower hums, flipping his snapback and looking around Sid to stare at Geno. “What about you, G? How’s the girl back home?”

Sid sucks in a breath, aware that he’s maybe a bit too invested in Geno’s answer, but Geno just shrugs at Flower. “Don’t know. We not talk right now. Too hard when I stay here, yes?”

“I feel that,” Duper offers, pointing at Geno with a fork loaded with potatoes. “If Carole-Lyne wasn’t sixty miles away, I don’t know how we’d do it.”

“But you two are like, practically married!” James says, earning an elbow from Paulie and a choking sound from Duper.

“Don’t even fucking joke about that, Lazy,” Duper hisses, still coughing on his food and reaching for his water.

“Please don’t die before the year starts,” Sid pleads, and Duper flips him off while he takes a drink.

After that the conversation switches back to not talking about anybody’s summer hook-ups, thank fuck, and they all get up to drop everything off for dish crew without Flower making more than five insinuating comments, which Sid considers to be a personal best. When he and G head up to their room, Sid because he has to unpack and Geno for reasons only known to himself – though he’s probably going to just distract Sid with Youtube videos and Buzzfeed links - it’s with the subject firmly, thankfully dropped.

Which, of course, Sid ruins when he asks halfway through folding his t-shirts, “So, what happened with you and Sofia?”

Geno glances up from where he’s dicking around on his laptop, probably to find more videos of cats playing pianos, and considers Sid. His side of the room is, as it always is, almost a pigsty, though Sid’s managed to introduce concepts like throwing out old snacks and occasionally doing laundry. Sid’s side, on the other hand, is still spotless from lack of use over summer break, everything neatly organized and carefully sorted.

Finally Geno shrugs at him, the same one-shoulder careless thing he gave Flower at dinner. “Say at dinner, too hard to keep up. Barely even friends, so can’t – can’t date.”

“Oh,” Sid says. It feels inadequate, and he follows up with, “That sucks, G.”

Geno screws up his mouth, sighing a little. “Yes, well, we only do things over break. If I not there, then no point, yes?”

“I guess,” Sid says finally, picking up another t-shirt to fold. He’s never really understood the bounds of Geno and Sofia’s thing, how they could be off all year and back on again in the summer, but it at least sounds like a clean break.

If a small, awful part of him is glad for it, well. He still isn’t going to say anything.

Geno huffs out a breath, mood suddenly shifting as he grins at Sid. “Want to watch video of cat? Very cute. Cutest.”

“I – I have to finish unpacking,” Sid says, even as he feels his resistance wavering, like it always does for Geno.

“Can unpack later. Cat video is _important_ ,” Geno says earnestly, like he knows he has an opening, and fuck, of course Sid fucking caves.

“Fine,” Sid sighs, walking across the room to sit at the foot of Geno’s bed, right where he always does. Geno passes him one of his pillows, because the wall right here has a tendency to poke right into one of Sid’s vertebrae in the worst way possible, and then sets up the laptop between their thighs, adjusting the screen to the angle they figured out was best for glare two days into sophomore year.

Geno cues up the video, something about cats and boxes. When Sid starts giggling halfway through, Geno smiles at him like it’s a triumph, and Sid would watch a thousand cat videos just to see that.

-

College tradition dictates that the first greek parties of the year are dry functions for new freshmen so they can get to know the frats -- Kappa and Sig the first weekend, Phi and Lambda the second. That means absolutely no keggers for the first two weekends under any circumstances, no matter how much the boys bitch about it.

“Because we’ll all get our asses sued,” Sid says when everyone groans. “Like, seriously sued -- no booze until midnight. Okay?”

“Boring,” Nealsy yells, and Sid glares at him.

“Lawsuits are only boring until you’re in one. No booze until the freshmen are gone. Everyone got it?”

There’s a chorus of muttered assent, and Sid nods at them. “Now, who wants to be in charge of the fire pit?”

“I’ll do it,” Kuni says, shrugging a little. “Otherwise Nealsy might accidentally light the house on fire.”

Fortunately for everyone involved, Kuni doesn’t light the house on fire, but instead gets the fire pit going just in time for the hordes of freshmen coming to visit the frat. By the time the first waves makes it to the house, they’ve already got the music going, Glasser manning the decks and pushing his glasses up his nose in between tracks. There’s a pile of flipflops right by the entrance of the tent Sid made Joey V and Marcel put up, the sand Juice picked up from Home Depot spilling out off the tarp onto the grass.

“Nice out,” Sid hears, and he turns to see Duper putting his phone back in his pocket, Hawaiian shirt bright against the 9 o’clock darkness.

“It is,” Sid agrees, shoving his hands in his cargo shorts and glancing up at where the stars are out. From inside the tent he can hear something that might be Ke$ha, which, Sid had thought Glasser had gotten over that stage last year, but apparently not. “See any good prospects?”

“Eh, there are a few.” Duper shrugs, flapping a hand weakly towards the crowded tent, then to the fire pit. “We’ll see if they show up for the first couple rush events.”

“It’s always a crapshoot,” Sid agrees, taking a sip of his soda and wishing there was rum in it.

“Still,” Duper says, stretching his arms above his head and half smiling at Sid. “Some of them are looking pretty promising. I could point them out, later.”

“Later, yeah,” Sid agrees, taking another sip of his boring plain Coke and scoping out the freshman. There are a few upperclassmen too that Sid sort of recognizes from classes and other frats, but there’s an incredibly high percentage of freshman, which -- Sid’s sure he’ll like them and welcome them into the frat and everything, they’re just. Very small.

“Well, off to scope out the babies, get some ideas about pledge challenges, you know, all that good shit. See you, Captain.” Duper peels off a sloppy salute and heads back into the tent, and Sid sighs, leaning against one of the trees, the one with the tire swing he’s pretty sure Kappa put up.

For a few seconds, there’s nothing but the soft strains of Gold Trans Am, but then Tanger appears in salmon shorts and a snapback, holding out a tiny airplane bottle of rum.

“Heard you needed this,” Tanger says, shaking the bottle at Sid.

“I shouldn’t,” Sid protests, but it’s a half-hearted one, and he doesn’t really resist as Tanger pulls his Solo cup out of his hand and dumps the entire bottle of rum into the Coke.

“Now you’ll be catching up to everyone here,” Tanger says, taking a pull of his own drink. “I think Nealer’s been drinking since noon. Dumbass.”

“Is he at least hydrated?” Sid asks, taking a sip of his rum and Coke that’s now decidedly more rum than Coke. Sid’s given up about worrying about Nealer since two months into last fall, figuring that if anything really goes wrong, Geno or Paulie will let him know so Sid can go find the insurance cards.

“Don’t worry, I saw Paulie making him chug, like, three Camelbacks worth of water.” Tanger shrugs, taking another swig of whatever drink he has and pushing his hair back behind his ear. “The freshmen seem okay, though. No one too weird, you know.”

“We can send them on to Lambda if they’re dicks,” Sid agrees, and Tanger laughs.

“Giroux’s gonna fuck your shit up someday, you know,” he says, taking another drink and nodding over towards Lambda, which is still the hideous shade of orange that Sid wishes they could get away with painting over. Or, at least, making the pledges paint over. That’s the point of pledges.

“He can try,” Sid says, pursing his lips. Like he’s going to let Claude Dickface Giroux get to him. Fucking asshole.

“Oh yeah?” Tanger asks, looking like he wants to burst out laughing, and Sid rolls his eyes.

“Whatever. He just can’t deal with us being better,” he replies, taking a sip of his drink. “But the freshmen seem okay?”

“As okay as they can be,” Tanger agrees. “They -- oh, shit, what the fuck is that kid doing?”

“Please don’t tell me something’s on fire,” Sid pleads.

“I think he’s trying to climb on our roof,” Tanger says, sounding slightly awed.

Sid sighs. “He won’t break his neck, will he?”

With a laugh, Tanger gives Sid a sloppy two-fingered salute. “Don’t worry, Captain. We promised no lawsuits, didn’t we?”

“Or trips to the ER,” Sid adds. “Fuck, just -- promise me you won’t let this kid break himself on our watch.”

“Aye aye,” Tanger says, already trotting off. As soon as he disappears into the crowd, Sid downs the rest of his rum and Coke with a sigh and hopes he won’t have to go to the Health Center because of the beach party. Again.

-

Sid first met Geno at international orientation, which he had attended under protest and ended up spending mostly miserable and bored to tears. It wasn’t until the second to last day, at a talk on the American university system standards for coursework, that he ended up in an auditorium seat next to a ridiculously tall guy apparently bent on spreading his knees as widely as possible.

“Do you have to do that?” Sid had hissed, glaring at him, and the guy had grinned at him, tongue poking out between his teeth.

“I need room,” he had said, smirking at Sid in a way that was simultaneously dickish and kind of hot. “Why you here? Talk like American.”

“I’m _Canadian_ ,” Sid had sighed, rolling his eyes a little, “and I don’t know why I'm here. Apparently I still have to come even though I speak English.”

“Just because speak English, don’t mean you know about –“ the guy had paused, gesturing up towards the stage of the auditorium, where some staffer was talking about the GPA system.

“Grade point averages?” Sid had supplied, and the guy had grinned at him, just a little sly.

“Evgeni Malkin. Nice to meet,” he’d said, sticking out a hand, and Sid had taken it.

“Sidney Crosby. Nice to meet you – Evgeni?” He’d tried to repeat it and butchered it completely, and Evgeni had laughed.

“Nickname better for you. I call you Sid? Can call me Geno,” he’d said.

A week later, Sid had spotted Geno at a rush event for Phi, and when he’d waved, Geno had waved back with a grin. They both ended up pledging, and that had pretty much been that.

That’s not the story Sid gives when one of the freshman asks at a rush dinner, earnestly wondering about what it’s like to be in a fraternity. “You guys seem really close,” he gushes, looking between where Sid’s sipping on his 7up and Geno is leaning against the wall, looking at something on his phone and occasionally nudging Sid whenever he finds new posts full of kitten pictures on Buzzfeed. “How’d you guys meet?”

“Oh, you know,” Sid says, elbowing Geno back so he’ll start acting like the vice president and not like Sid’s teenaged sister, “orientation.”

“That’s so great that you’ve been friends for so long,” the freshman says, grinning at them both with a smile that’s wide and pimply and incredibly young.

“Yeah,” Sid replies, smiling back. “It really is.”

When the freshman leaves, dragged off by his roommate to go take advantage of the free food, Geno finally looks up from his phone and wrinkles his nose. “We ever like that?”

Sid shrugs, taking a sip of soda and looking over at Geno. “Probably,” he says.

Geno shakes his head, laughing a little. “No, we not. We always this old.”

Sid rolls his eyes, but he can’t help laughing as he pushes off the wall, reaching out to tug on Geno’s shirt. “Come on,” he says, “let’s go be friendly to the freshmen.”

Geno wrinkles his nose again, but he stands up straight, allowing Sid to tow him along towards a knot of guys whispering and glancing around the living room. “Boring,” he hums under his breath, only to laugh as Sid reaches out to elbow him in the gut.

“Don’t be a dick, dick. You need to be nice,” Sid says, and Geno laughs again, reaching over to fuck with Sid’s hair.

“Yes, yes, I listen to Captain,” Geno says, and Sid scowls at him.

“I hate that nickname,” he says, even as they draw closer to a group of freshmen who look slightly terrified.

“Best,” Geno says, flicking Sid in the ear before turning his most charming smile towards the freshmen. “Hello, welcome to Phi, best frat on campus!” he says, smirking just a little at Sid before turning back to his job of getting the freshmen to think that Phi is the motherfucking best.

-

Sid will admit he’s not the biggest partier in Phi. He got the president job mostly because he’s one of the only guys who's willing to look at a budget sheet and bully everyone into doing their service hours, though he really does like the volunteering they do at the animal shelter and the elementary school down the street. While he’s done his fair share of taking shots of Fireball or Everclear to preserve frat honor, most of the time he has one or two beers and calls it good.

Tonight, however, is the first real party of the semester. The vote came out to having a highlighter party, and as a result Sid’s spent half the day taping up the walls and installing black lights so it looks, as Flower said three hours ago, “trippy as _shit_ , man.”

“This,” he says now, spinning his baseball cap and looking over at Sid, “is this shit. You know, Sid?”

“Yeah,” Sid replies, draining his cup. There isn’t a lot left, which is tragic. Not having booze is super tragic. The world is a cruel and unjust place.

“Way to be overdramatic, Captain,” Flower says, rolling his eyes. “You know we have, like, an entire liquor store in the house, right?”

“Yeah, but none of it is in my cup,” Sid counters, because his cup is _empty_ and that is fucking sad. He’s the president, for fuck’s sake. He should have all the booze.

“Go get some more then, dumbass,” Flower says, unsympathetically, because he’s a dick. Even if he is Sid’s best friend or whatever. Well, best friend if you don’t count Geno, but Sid thinks it’s pretty obvious that Geno’s different. Geno’s just -- his Geno.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you love your G,” Flower says, and Sid realizes he’s been thinking out loud again. Stupid drunk brain. “Now, you going to go get a drink or not?”

“I think yes,” Sid replies, nodding at Flower and heading out of the basement towards the stairs. 

Going upstairs is, unsurprisingly, a bit of a struggle, since everything feels like it’s spinning and off-center. Even worse, however, is the state of the booze areas as he heads up. When he looks at Glasser from where he’s standing behind the bar and gestures towards the row of handles, Glasser just shakes his head.

“We’re cleared out,” he says, “or at least, cleared out of anything you’ll like. I’m down to flavored vodka, Fireball, and gin.”

Sid wrinkles his nose to show just what he thinks of that. Ugh, _gin_.

“Yeah, thought so,” Glasser says, surprisingly chill for the guy who’s supposed to have booze for Sid to drink.

“Seriously?” Sid asks, leaning up against the bar partially to look over the edge and partially because the floor is getting awfully tilty. “Nothing?”

“Not unless you want keg beer,” Glasser says with a shrug, and there is no way Sid is drunk enough to contemplate after-midnight keg beer. No fucking way.

“I’ll keep looking,” he says, giving Glasser a sloppy salute. “Thanks anyways.”

“No problem,” Glasser replies, already busy pouring drinks for some of the Kappa guys, and Sid turns to go find more alcohol.

Next Sid tries the beer pong room, which, while mostly having beer, also occasionally has one of the random wall cupboards full of fifths, which can then be used to make Sid something that’s actually good, instead of fucking Ranier or some shit. When he gets there, he finds Brooksie whooping some underclassman’s ass at beer pong, which, while unsurprising, does mean that Sid has to wait to ask if there is, in fact, any booze left in the bottles. Deciding it isn’t worth it to try and pour any, as that might end in broken glass and sadness, Sid leans up against the cupboard, crosses his arms, and settles in to wait.

“Hey Sid,” Brooksie calls out while the sophomore chugs a beer, “what are you doing up here? I thought you’d be chilling with Flower all night.”

“Ran out of drink,” Sid replies, and he nods towards the row of fifths. “Anything good left?”

Brooksie shrugs and grabs the ping-pong ball. “Not really,” he says, squinting at the pong table. “We kind of got cleared out. You try Glasser?”

Sid scowls. “Yeah, he just had gin left. Seriously, there’s nothing up here?”

Of course, he has to wait for Brooksie to take his shot, which he does with a lot of arm waving and yelling. Finally, Brooksie calls back, “Sorry, Captain, I think you’re shit out of luck. Gonna have to switch to keg beer!”

“Ugh,” Sid groans, unfolding and stomping out of the beer pong room, thirsty and forlorn. _Forlorn_.

He’s just about to give up on finding anything else to drink when he has the bright idea to go check out the kitchen. Last year Paulie kept a stash of good, middle shelf liquor behind the giant salad bowls, and anything’s got to be better than fucking Natty Light. It takes a couple of tries for him to open the door -- he must be drunker than he thought, because fumbling with the doorknob takes a lot more brainpower than it normally should, but finally he manages to wrench it open.

Then he looks up.

“Seriously?” Sid yelps. There’s a wet noise as Nealer jumps in surprise, detaching himself from whoever he was making out with. “In the kitchen? People make food here!”

“Wasn’t my idea,” Nealer replies, taking a step back, and Sid can just barely see the guy behind him, the guy who looks weirdly like --

“Paulie?”

Nealer makes a choked noise, and Paulie, oh fuck that is Paulie, waves a little. “Hey Sid.”

Sid blinks, and then very carefully leans back against the doorframe, because standing up feels kind of difficult right now. Finally he manages, “I expected better from you, Paulie.”

Paulie just shrugs, and then apparently decides that Sid’s no longer worthy of his attention, because he’s grabbing Nealer’s t-shirt and reeling Nealer closer, and okay, maybe Sid doesn’t need to go get a couple shots of the good stuff right now.

“Okay,” Sid says, when it becomes clear that Paulie and Nealer definitely aren’t paying any attention or really seem to care that Sid can see them groping, oh god. “I’m gonna -- bye.”

Nealer makes some noise of acknowledgement that turns into a groan. Sid takes that as his cue to get the fuck out of Dodge.

The only problem with leaving, though, is that not only is Sid possibly scarred for life by his brothers fucking sexiling him from the fucking kitchen, he also is still without any booze, which is just a fucking tragedy.

“Ugh,” he groans, grumbling his way over to the basement stairs and stomping down. It takes him a few seconds to adjust to the darkness, and he blinks until he can see the glow sticks and ink from highlighter pens clearly before stepping into the basement.

Which is, of course, when he walks right into someone.

“Fuck, sorry,” he says, stepping back and peering up to find Geno blinking down at him. “Hey G!”

“Sid!” Geno shouts back, steadying Sid with a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?”

“Fine, I’m fine,” Sid shouts, except the room is kind of spinning so he might not be as fine as he thought.

“How drunk are you?” Geno says, loud in Sid’s ear as he pulls Sid upright and closer.

“Not drunk,” Sid protests, even though he probably is, because -- whatever. Fuck off.

“So drunk,” Geno replies, but he sounds fond.

“Do you know if there’s booze?” Sid asks, because he’s still fucking thirsty, and all the places he’s looked have betrayed him.

“Need it?” Geno asks, and Sid nods a few times. More than a few times.

“Definitely,” he agrees, and Geno huffs out a sigh and then grabs Sid’s cup. “Hey!”

“Chill out,” Geno tells him, “am give you some of mine.” He presses the cup back into Sid’s hand. “Happy now?”

Sid takes a sip, and it’s not gin or shitty keg beer, which means he’s definitely happy. “Yep,” he says, lips popping on the p, and Geno laughs.

“You best,” he says, which is untrue. Geno just gave him booze, therefore, Geno’s the best.

Shaking his head, Sid pokes Geno in the chest. “No, you are,” he says, just to make sure Geno knows. Geno laughs again, and Sid scowls. “I’m being serious!”

“Know you are,” Geno says, “but you best. I lie about that?”

Sid pokes him in the shoulder for good measure. “You’re best,” he insists, and then he sees Flower in the corner waving him over. “I think Flower needs me,” he says, patting Geno on the shoulder, or maybe the neck. Sid’s aim is kind of off. “See you later, yeah?”

“See you,” Geno says, and Sid can’t tell if he _thinks_ Geno’s sounding fond or if he actually is. He hopes Geno sounds fond about him.

He can’t think about it too long, though, because then Flower’s looping an arm around his neck. “So,” he says, grinning, “You gonna help me DJ? Juice is playing, like, Ukrainian hard house. We gotta stop that shit.”

“Fuck yeah,” Sid says, taking a sip of his drink, and from then on the night turns into a technicolor blur.

-

Sid wakes up feeling like something’s died in his mouth.

“Ugh,” he groans, rolling over so he doesn’t have his face shoved into the couch cushion. Of course, this just means that the sunlight streaming through the window hits his face, which is equally bad.

Fuck, he needs water. And Advil.

As slowly as he can manage, he sits up, taking in the damage. Mostly his head just aches, though his stomach is also protesting mightily as well, which means he probably has to head into the kitchen -- and fuck, he slept on the couch. His back is going to kill him.

At least nobody can see him moving like an old man and then make fun of him.

Slowly and with a lot of wincing, Sid finally makes it to standing up. Nobody else has passed out in the living room -- though really that means nothing, because after highlighter parties, basically anywhere can be a bed. Still, it means he has a lot less to trip over on his way to the kitchen, just a mess of empties that need to be recycled and, weirdly enough, a pile of t-shirts, which, Sid really doesn’t want to know.

Once he makes it to the kitchen, he finds it relatively clean. The counters aren’t even that sticky, which is pretty amazing, not to mention the part where the dishes are done and the floor looks a lot less like a biohazard breeding ground. There’s even a pot of freshly brewed coffee.

Plus, there’s a cake sitting on the counter.

Sid walks over to check out the cake, because he’s eighty percent sure that wasn’t there last night -- but there it is, still a little warm to the touch. There’s even a little message written on it in icing, though it takes two tries for Sid to read it.

The cake reads, “Sorry We Fucked in the Kitchen,” and, well, at least Sid knows who cleaned up.

He makes sure to take a picture on his phone before cutting a slice. That shit needs to be preserved. For posterity.

Halfway through his slice of cake and a large, large mug of coffee, someone comes crashing into the kitchen. Sid looks up from scrolling through some Buzzfeed article to find Nealer, looking rumpled and sloppy, and very carefully doesn’t think about whose room Nealer spent the night in last night.

“Hey Sid,” Nealer says, voice croaky. Sid tries very hard not to choke on his cake.

“Morning,” he replies, glancing back at his phone as Nealer pours himself some cereal and plunks down in the chair across from him.

“Ugh,” Nealer groans, rubbing at his eyes and pushing his hair off his forehead “What even happened last night?”

Sid shrugs, and takes another bite of cake. It has chocolate and peanut butter in it and is super delicious, and if he doesn’t think about the reasons for its existence, he can enjoy it without guilt. Unfortunately, seeing Nealer means he’s faced with the those reasons as appearing in the string of hickeys running up and down his neck. “We had a party?” he offers.

Nealer just groans, slumping against the kitchen table and staring sadly up at Sid. “So. Tired,” he complains, and then glances at Sid’s chest. “Nice v-neck, bro,” he says, completely genuinely, and then his eyes widen slightly as he stares at Sid’s chest. “Um, Sid --”

“What?” Sid asks, mumbling through his forkful of cake.

“You got --” Nealer trails off, gesturing towards Sid’s chest before letting his hand fall to the table. Sid blinks, and glances down at his chest, where --

“What?” he asks, staring bewilderedly at the huge “BEST” written on his chest in bright orange highlighter, visible under the collar of his old, ratty v-neck. “How -- Jesus fucking Christ.” He stands up to, he doesn’t know, shower or somehow get this shit off him. Is highlighter ink poisonous?

Stomping up the stairs, Sid passes a couple people passed out in the landing, including, memorably, a pair of freshmen in a heap next to the stairwell. When he does make it upstairs, he finds Geno, just barely awake, staring bleary-eyed at something on his laptop.

“Fuck,” Sid grumbles, peeling off his shirt and looking around for a clean towel. 

“What wrong?” Geno asks, glancing up from his laptop.

“Someone wrote all over me. Is highlighter ink poisonous?” 

Geno shrugs. “Not know,” he says, looking back down at his screen. “Probably okay though.”

Sid twists his lips, because “probably okay” isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement here. “Well, I should probably shower anyways,” he sighs, finally finding a towel and slinging it over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Geno agrees blandly. “You stink.”

“Fuck you, you’re just as bad,” Sid snaps back, snapping the towel at Geno’s head. “I bet you stink too.”

“No, is _manly_ ,” Geno corrects, warding Sid off with one hand. “Go shower, smell less like asshole.”

“You’re such a fucking dick,” Sid tells him.

Geno just grins at him like the dick he is. “You like,” he says, tongue between his teeth, laughing when Sid scowls.

“Fuck off,” Sid says, turning to head down the hall, and deliberately not thinking about how true that is.

He keeps the water a little colder, just in case.

-

October hits with a cold snap, a combination of wind and general chill that means closing up all the windows in the frat house and digging sweaters out from under all of Sid’s t-shirts. Geno spends twice as much time in the mornings before his 8 AMs bitching about how cold it is, wandering around their room rolled up in his comforter. It’s only because Sid’s had a year to get used to it that he manages to stick to chirping instead of thinking too much about how it’s kind of adorable, in a wimpy way.

Fall also means that Rush gets even more intense. One of the perks of being president is that Sid gets to make all the other guys plan whatever events they’re supposed to have, and after a fairly cutthroat chapter meeting about who gets to lead river rafting, they finally have a solid schedule of all the outdoor expeditions, in-house parties, and formal dinners up until Bid Day.

Of course, Sid doesn’t remember until he gets multiple insistent texts from Flower that he promised he would help with the barbecue, because between his paper for Professor Bullano’s class and readings for Rutherford’s seminar, everything else got put on the back burner.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, hefting a couple of grocery bags and wincing as he heads towards the back grill. “I sort of -- forgot.”

“You think?” Flower says, grabbing the bags off him and spreading them out over the backyard picnic table. “I thought I was going to have to make all these burgers alone, you fucker.”

“I wouldn’t have abandoned you,” Sid protests, pulling out vegetables he bought so Paulie wouldn’t judge their nutritional choices. “Also, where’s the cooler?” 

“I don’t fucking know. Ask Paulie,” Flower says, flapping his hand toward the house. “I have to concentrate on my grilling magic.”

Sid rolls his eyes at Flower and goes off in search of a cooler.

An hour later, Tanger’s replaced Flower at the grill, bitching that Flower always overcooks his burgers, and Sid’s been relegated to veggie prep. He’s in the middle of arranging carrots and celery when someone plunks something on his head.

“What the fuck?” Sid asks, pushing up the brim of the hat, and he finds Geno and Nealer grinning at him like shits. 

“You don’t look presidential enough,” Nealer says, even as Geno just smirks at him. “We figured we should help.”

“I do not need your help,” Sid protests, pulling the hat off his head and staring at it. It’s a fucking tricorn.

“But,” Nealer says, waving his arms expansively, “now you look like George Washington! Or Benjamin Franklin!”

“He wasn’t a president,” Sid corrects, staring at the tricorn and wondering how he managed to get roped into this frat in the first place.

“Nealsy shit at American history,” Geno says easily, plucking the hat out of Sid’s hands and putting it back on his head. “Too stupid to be here.”

“I am not stupid,” Nealer protests, punching Geno in the gut. “I’m smart enough to have gotten in here, aren’t I?”

“You _humanities_. Stupidest.” Geno informs him, even as he looks over at Sid with a smirk. “Right, Sid?”

“I’m social sciences, G,” Sid says, turning back to the veggie platter and pulling out one of the containers of dip he bought at Safeway. “We’re way better.”

“Both of you suck,” Nealer says, pouting and crossing his arms. “We shouldn’t even let the freshmen near you.”

“Lies,” Geno replies, stretching and snagging one of the carrots off the plate and popping it into his mouth. “We best example for freshmen. Not you.”

“Are you guys going to be useful?” Flower hollers from over by the grill, and all three of them startle. It looks like starting up the charcoal hasn’t gone as well as planned -- Tanger looks slightly singed, and Flower’s cursing at the grill in French. “Otherwise, you should stop eating the food and start _helping_.”

“Yes, yes, I best help,” Geno says, even as he grabs another carrot from the veggie tray. Sid should probably stop him, but.

“You guys won’t even let me near the stove. How am I supposed to help?” Nealer whines.

Flower just rolls his eyes back. “Get Paulie or someone to supervise you. You can’t possibly set anything on fire then. And G, if you’re going to help, stop eating the fucking vegetables -- and Sid, stop letting him.”

At that, Sid glances up at Geno, but he just grins back, entirely unrepentant. Sid probably shouldn’t find it as charming as he does. 

Fortunately, despite Flower spending more than a small amount of time looking like he’s about to turn them all into hamburgers and barbecue them instead, they do manage to get everything set up and ready to go by the time the freshmen rushing actually arrive. Sid gets assigned to greeting duty, as neither Flower or Tanger seem to trust him with the burgers, despite the fact that he doesn’t undercook his food like _some_ people. Thus, he just hangs out by the back porch, handing out drinks -- just soda, because there’s no way Sid wants to deal with a lawsuit -- and watching Juice talk excitedly to a really tall, really blond kid who has to be Finnish, judging by the rapid-fire definitely-not-English going on.

“Who’s that?” Sid asks, once the kid wanders off to get a burger, and Juice glances at him.

“Olli -- he’s an exchange student. I said he should rush -- us Finns got to stick together, you know?” Juice actually looks excited for once, which Sid isn’t really used to seeing outside of when Juice has had more shots than half the frat combined.

“Yeah, for sure,” Sid agrees, crossing his arms to ward off the cold and smiling at Juice in what is hopefully an encouraging and presidential manner. “You going to bid for him?”

“Thinking about it,” Juice confirms, nodding.

“That’s great,” Sid says, right before smiling at the next freshman arriving. “Hey! I’m Sid. Who’re you?”

“Uh,” says the kid, blinking rapidly, “Robert? Robert Bortuzzo?”

“Nice to meet you, Robert,” Sid says, holding out his hand to shake. “Have you come to some of our other events?”

“Uh, just the water rafting one,” Robert says, rubbing the back of his neck and looking awkward. Sid really hopes this wasn’t how he was two years ago. “But, uh, Flower said there’d be food? So.”

“Well, you came to the right place. You can go grab a burger, a drink, whatever, just hang out with us. I think there might even be a fire pit later.”

“Sweet,” Robert says, looking slightly more animated, giving Sid a wave before heading off in search of food.

“How’s it going?”

Sid jumps, spinning around to find Duper grinning at him as he leans against the back railing of the porch. “Jesus fuck, Duper,” he hisses, “you scared the shit out of me.”

“That’s my job,” Duper says easily. “What’d you think of the freshmen?”

“Good,” Sid says, scanning the crowd. There’s a couple of them he’s seen before -- the blond kid talking to Robert, for one, and the incredibly skinny one named, he doesn’t know, Brayden? Brandon? Something like that. In any case, nobody seems too bizarre, or like they’d be Lambda material at least, and definitely nobody seems as much trouble as Nealer, which Sid can only count as a win. “Nobody too terrible, you know?”

“Yeah,” Duper agrees, nodding slowly. “I mean, obviously the final say is during chapter, but I think we got some good ones this year.”

“No way it’s crazier than last year,” Sid agrees.

Even Juice snorts at that, but Duper full on belly laughs. “Fucking Lazy, am I right? I still can’t believe Paulie called him as his rookie -- though I guess Geno would’ve if he hadn’t.” 

“True,” Sid agrees, taking a step so he can lean against the railing and watch Tanger and Flower squabble over the grill even as Kuni methodically flips burgers and the freshmen listen to Joey V, who’s retelling his spring break camping nightmare judging by the arm gestures. “Plus, Marcel and Nisky weren’t bad. Or you, Juice.”

“I was great,” Juice agrees easily. “Very mature.”

“More mature than Lazy, that’s for sure,” Duper says, grinning and giving Sid a quick sock to the shoulder. “Well, these guys shouldn’t be that bad. Guess we’ll find out on bid night, right?”

“Right,” Sid agrees. “You know what you’re going to do to them yet?”

“Oh, you know me,” Duper says. “I always come up with something.”

At that, Duper wanders off, and Sid looks over to find Juice grinning.

“Well,” he says, wincing, “hopefully none of the freshmen will be too traumatized. Right?”

“You think that, Captain,” Juice says, giving Sid a salute before wandering off to go find food. After a few seconds, Sid follows him -- he ought to get to know the freshmen before Duper freaks them out for good.

-

“So!” Duper says, clapping his hands and gesturing at the freshmen standing and shivering slightly in the basement. Sid probably should have warned them in the card to wear sweatshirts. “We are gathered here today to celebrate the joining of the six of you to the glorious house of Phi Iota Tau --”

“Come on, Duper!” someone shouts, and Sid glances around the basement to find Nealer, half perched on Paul’s lap. Sid doesn’t even want to know. “Hurry up already.”

“Shut the fuck up, Lazy,” Duper calls back, taking a swig of whatever’s in his cup and staring down all the pledges. “My name, as you already know, is Duper, Pascal only if you’re my mother or a professor, and I am your pledgemaster.” He gestures over to where Sid, Geno, and Flower are hanging out by the weird non-functional fireplace. “Those guys are, respectively, your president, Sid, your veep, Geno, and your secretary-treasurer guy, Flower. Treat them with respect and shit.”

Sid rolls his eyes and Geno not so subtly coughs a laugh into his fist, even as Flower protests, “Really? Secretary-treasurer guy? No wonder nobody fucking respects me around here.”

“Shut up, Flower, you’re taking away the majesty of the moment.”

Of course, then Flower has to defend himself, spitting something back in French, and Duper of course has to respond, and Tanger joins in, and Sid’s going to get a goddamn migraine if they don’t shut up and get on with things.

“Boys!” he yells, and all three of the French Canadian stare at him, along with the pledges, all of whom have a surprisingly similar look of wide-eyed shock and mild terror.

“If we could get back to business, please,” Sid continues, glancing around the room.

Sullenly nodding at Sid, Flower returns to his place by the mantlepiece while Duper takes another swig of whatever the fuck is in his cup and eyeballs the pledges.

“So,” Duper says, “This is the first part of the initiation process. In time, you will become full members of the brotherhood of Phi Iota Tau -- aw, fuck it. Pledge name time!”

“Pledge names?” One of the pledges asks, the blonde one who looks like the perfect stereotype of a California surfer boy.

After glancing over at Duper just to see if Duper will actually be a little less dickish this year and explain shit, and getting a shit-eating grin in response, Sid sighs. “That’s what we’ll call you all through the pledging process, until the end of I-week.”

“Precisely,” Duper says, whipping out a hand to point each pledge in the face. “Until we’ve reached I-week, you will be going by whatever name I pick for you. Well, whatever name, so long as Sid approves.”

Sid rolls his eyes, but apparently it calms the pledges down, because a couple of them visibly relax.

“Anyways, no putting it off -- we’ll start from here. Your name, pledgeling?”

“Um,” says the blonde surfer kid. “Beau Bennett.”

“Beau Bennett,” Duper repeats, reaching up to stroke his beard. “And are you, by chance, from California?”

“L.A., born and raised,” Beau says, grinning at them all.

“Well! Based on your sun exposure, and also your sunny personality --” Duper pauses, grinning like a dick at the other guys, who laugh for reasons probably related more to the beer they’ve all been drinking than how funny Duper may or may not be, “I think we’ll name you -- Sunshine.”

“Sunshine?” Beau repeats, wrinkling his nose a little, but Duper’s already moved on, staring at the tall guy right next to Beau.

“And your name, big guy?” Duper asks, and the guy -- Robert, Sid thinks his name is, half-remembered from one of the rush barbecues -- swallows.

“Robert -- Robert Bortuzzo,” Robert replies, and Duper takes a step back, dramatically stroking his beard. 

“Robert Bortuzzo -- you know, that last name is a little long. How about Bort?” Duper says it like Robert has any input at all, but before Robert can reply, Duper’s walking down the line again.

“Big class this year,” Sid hears, and he turns his head just enough to see Geno taking a sip of his drink, raising his eyebrows in an attempt to look serious that mostly makes him look dumb. “We have this many last year?”

“Well, there was only four of them, but one was Nealer,” Sid replies, and Geno hides his laugh in his cup, even as he shifts the arm around Sid’s shoulders. “Nealer counts for like, an entire pledge class.”

“Just as much trouble,” Geno agrees.

Duper goes down the line in fairly quick succession, or at least quick for Duper anyways. There’s another Finnish exchange student for Juice, some kid named Olli who promptly gets saddled with the nickname “Duckling” because “Look at that hair, guys! It’s so fluffy!” Soon after Olli comes Jeff, now renamed “Tishy” -- “That ass,” Duper says, stroking his beard, even as Jeff flushes -- and Jayson, who takes “Megaman” with a fair amount of grace. Simon accepts “Desi” with a wrinkled nose, but Duper doesn’t allow for much protest, ruffling his hair before staring down his final target.

“You,” he says, stroking his beard and frowning. “You’re Brandon, right?”

“Yeah,” Brandon says, nodding jerkily.

Duper just circles him, like a tiger, or some other large animal. Brandon looks slightly terrified.

“Always so cute how scared pledges are,” Geno whispers in Sid’s ear. Sid can’t help giggling behind his hand.

Finally, Duper ends up back in front of Brandon again. “You,” he says, staring Brandon down, “are fucking _skinny_ , kid. What do you even eat? Celery? Siracha? Top Ramen?”

“I eat!” Brandon protests, right before clamming up again.

“God,” Duper says, looking Brandon over. “You’re like the kid from that book series -- Paulie! You’re an English major, what are the kids books about that kid who gets like, smashed flat?”

Paulie rolls his eyes as he takes a swig of his beer. “Flat Stanley,” he calls back.

Duper snaps at him before spinning around and grinning at Brandon. “Flat Stanley!” he shouts. “That’s you, Brandon. Learn to love it.”

Sid thinks he can hear Brandon muttering, “I’m not that skinny.”

“Well!” Duper shouts, clapping his hands together. “Now that you are all named, you must take the Phi Iota Tau pledge of loyalty! And brotherhood!”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Kuni mutters from behind Sid and Geno’s couch. “Who let Duper make his own drinks?”

“To the frat!” Duper hollers, right before chugging out of his Solo cup. 

“To the frat,” everyone repeats, with varying amounts of clarity, right before taking a drink. Sid dutifully chugs along with them, and only barely manages not to cough -- whoever mixed his drink made it taste like lighter fluid. He blames Glasser.

“Very good,” Duper says, once everyone’s drunk up. “Now -- we party!”

Fifteen minutes and a couple more sip of his possibly-lighter-fluid drink later, Sid’s comfortably tipsy and not really listening to Geno and Kuni debate pledge names while Brandon hangs near them, still looking slightly terrified.

“Yours is good,” Geno says, taking a long sip before gesturing with his cup. “Honey Badger, yes? Scary. Vicious. Just like you.”

Kuni just rolls his eyes. “I can’t even blame Duper for that one,” he says. “Though fuck if I haven’t tried.”

“So he’s like that all the time?” Brandon asks.

Kuni nods firmly. “Yep, pretty much,” he says, walking around the couch and giving Brandon a shoulder pat. “You’ll be okay, just don’t -- react as much. You know? He feeds off that.”

“Right,” Brandon says, still looking mildly shell-shocked. Kuni just gives him a nod and wanders off, presumably to find more booze.

“Nickname not so bad,” Geno says, in what’s probably supposed to be a wise sort of voice. “Last year’s even worse than yours.”

“I bet you didn’t have a shitty nickname,” Brandon mutters, and Sid can’t help giggling.

“He totally did,” he says, trying to smile at Brandon as non-threateningly and winningly as possible. “It was -- mmph, Geno!”

“Secret,” Geno says, still holding his hand over Sid’s mouth. “Nobody tell.”

Sid bats at his arm, trying not to spill his drink. “Get your fucking hand off my face, dickhead,” he says, even as Geno laughs.

“Not try to tell secret,” he replies, but he finally moves his hand away so Sid can breathe. And not think about how big his hands are. And what they could do. Definitely not.

“What was yours?” Brandon asks Sid, and Geno leans in close before Sid can even talk.

“You not hear? His _best_ ,” Geno says with relish, grinning. “Call Captain Canada. Captain for short.”

“Fucking stupid nickname,” Sid mutters, but Geno just shakes him a little with the arm around his shoulder.

“Great nickname. Make you wear flag for I-week when run around block.”

“I nearly froze my fucking balls off,” Sid grumbles, shuddering a little in reminiscence. He’d spent a solid four hours wondering if he would die of hypothermia. “You didn’t even _have_ a costume, you dick.” 

“Because I too good for costume,” Geno brags. “Everyone already know I best. Not need to dress up to prove.”

“More like all of his regular clothes are a costume,” Brooksie calls out, and Geno turns to stick his tongue out.

“Just jealous, Brooksie!” he yells back, right before turning back to grin at Sid and Suttsy in turn. “Sid though, he need something more than just self. Flag perfect.”

“The worst,” Sid tells Brandon. “Don’t let Geno pick your costume.”

Geno raises his free hand, even as the other tightens its grip on Sid’s shoulder. “Not pick! Just… suggest.”

“Liar,” Sid says, leaning back into Geno and taking a long pull of his beer. “Everybody knows it’s your fault.”

“Never,” Geno replies, turning his head so his cheek brushes against Sid’s ear.

“Right,” Brandon says, and Sid blinks to find him still standing there. “I think we have to do shots? Or is Duper making that up?”

“Duper not make up,” Geno says mock-sternly. “Duper pledgemaster. You listen to pledgemaster, yes?”

“I mean, yeah,” Brandon says, still looking fairly like a deer in the headlights, “but --”

“Go! Shots!” Geno declares, waving around his drink so wildly that some of it sloshes out. “Not come back until drunk!”

“You’re drunk,” Sid mumbles, resting his head a little lower down on Geno’s shoulder.

“Might be,” Geno agrees. From here, Sid can feel rather than hear him, the rumble of his voice vibrating under Sid’s cheek. “You need to be more drunk.”

“Don’t,” Sid protests, even as Geno pushes at his shoulder, “I really, really don’t need to be drunker.”

“Think you do,” Geno says, pushing Sid upright. As he sits, Sid scrubs a hand through his hair and blinks at Geno, who beams back at him. “Otherwise I get Duper and Tanger to help. Then you do all the shots.”

“Please no,” Sid protests, but Geno’s already standing up and waving Tanger over.

“Tanger!” Geno yells, waving his arms like one of those guys at the airports, the -- fuck, Sid’s too tipsy for this. “Sid need to do shots! Come help!”

“I really, really don’t!” Sid shouts back, but Tanger’s already coming over brandishing a handle of vodka, and Geno’s settling an arm around his shoulders, and Kuni’s passing out shot glasses, and what the hell. It’s Pledge Night. It’ll be fine.

-

Sid wakes up the night after the pledge party feeling like a bulldozer has run over his brain in the middle of the night. Everything hurts, from his legs to his eyes, and he pretty much wants to roll over and die.

Unfortunately, Professor Rutherford isn’t very forgiving about late papers, and so Sid reluctantly makes himself roll out of bed, grumbling as he pulls on sweats and a t-shirt. Geno is still passed out on his bed, face down on top of the blankets, and Sid blushes as he notices that Geno -- well. Geno apparently actually heard Sid’s advice to strip down before he passed out, because there’s absolutely nothing blocking Sid’s view of his naked ass.

Sid blinks, trying to figure out how Geno wasn’t cold, or how he didn’t notice last night that Geno was stark naked in their room while Sid was _there_ , holy fuck -- Sid’s too hungover to keep thinking about this.

Moving carefully and trying hard not to make any loud noises while also fighting off his headache, Sid grabs his laptop and print-outs and heads downstairs, staking out the comfiest leather couch before wandering into the kitchen to grab some food. He has to wade through a sea of cups and the remains of a couple broken shot glasses, but finding that there’s still enough Cocoa Puffs to serve as his breakfast -- or, okay, lunch -- makes it all worth it. After pouring himself a bowl and picking his way back to the living room, settling on the couch cushions and spreading his readings around him, Sid feels marginally more like he can deal with writing a paper on Medieval Europe, despite the topic being, well, Medieval Europe.

An hour later, Sid’s churned out a page and a half and is only just starting to flag when a particularly loud crashing noise signals someone else finally getting up to face the day. The only other people Sid’s seen all morning were Flower and Vero, and that was very briefly and not something Sid really wanted to intrude on, so it’s mostly out of curiosity that Sid glances at the stairs to see who else would actually be up at eleven after the shit they all got up to last night.

To his surprise, it’s Geno who’s stumbling down the stairs, hair messy and sticking straight up, glasses perched on his nose, wearing a low-slung pair of sweatpants and no shirt.

“Morning,” Geno says, or at least Sid thinks he says -- Geno tends to be incredibly non-verbal on regular mornings, and Sid’s learned through a year and a half of rooming with him that he might not hear a word from Geno until three in the afternoon if he’s hungover.

“Morning, G,” Sid replies, unable to stop staring at him over the top of his laptop. He figures it’s fairly justified -- like any normal human could resist seeing Geno shirtless and in sweatpants, the waistband low enough to show the v of his hips. Sid is just -- giving in to his biological urges. He’s sure Geno’s studied shit like that.

“Mmph,” Geno grumbles back, stumbling towards the kitchen like a particularly sleep-deprived zombie.

Once Geno’s safely out of eyeshot, and therefore unable to distract Sid, Sid can turn back to his paper and get to work on his second body paragraph. He’s just gotten into the meat of his argument about jousting and its impact when Geno walks back into the living room, plopping down on the couch opposite Sid and chewing on a couple of Pop Tarts. 

“You write paper?” Geno asks, or, well, mumbles through a mouthful of pastry.

Sid nods, glancing up from his laptop screen. “Yeah, for Rutherford, and --” he stops, abruptly, because Geno’s sitting on the couch with his legs splayed wide open, taking up half the space, and because of it Sid can see --

Well. Sid guesses that Geno just never put any underwear on at all today.

“And?” Geno asks, cheeks puffed up from his Pop Tart.

“Um,” Sid says. He knows he’s blushing, can feel it burning on the tops of his cheeks, but he can see Geno’s _dick_ , it’s right there, and it’s really, really hard to tear his eyes away. “I mean, Medieval Europe is like, really boring, but I think I can pull off at least a B. You know.”

“Of course you can,” Geno says, swallowing hard, and now Sid’s watching the line of his throat, no clothes hiding that, and fuck. Sid really can’t deal with this. “Better than everyone else here.”

“That’s not true,” Sid replies, glancing down at his screen and staring at the last sentence of his paper. “I’m alright.”

In response, Geno just blows a raspberry, a move so childish that Sid can’t help laughing, the stupid, childish giggle that he hasn’t been able to shake despite years of trying. It makes Geno laugh too, and Sid has to look back at him, watch him laugh, just for a second.

“Still best,” Geno replies with a small smile, lips quirked just barely to the side. “Know can do it.”

“Thanks, G,” Sid says, smiling back before turning back to the screen, staring down the blinking cursor on his Word document.

After ten minutes or so, Sid can hear Geno standing up by the sound of the couch creaking, but it still takes him by surprise when Geno claps him on the shoulder, hand huge and warm even through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. “Good luck,” Geno yawns, “I go back to bed. Too tired for this shit.”

“You do that, G,” Sid replies, even as his fingers stall on the keyboard. “See you later.”

Geno hums something incomprehensible in reply, lifting his hand from Sid’s shoulder and walking back towards the stairs, and finally Sid can get back to work.

Well, not without another glance behind him at Geno’s ass in his sweats, but. Sid’s only human, and the knowledge that Geno doesn’t have any boxers or anything on just makes the view even sweeter.

-

They hold their first mixer with Alpha pretty quick after they pick pledges, planning for an Americana party about a week after pledge names. Sid’s looking forward to it, relatively speaking. The girls from Alpha are all pretty cool, and the theme means Sid can get away with a t-shirt and jeans and be done with it, unlike last year’s seven sins party where Tanger made him dress up as the devil.

There was red spandex involved. Never again.

Sid starts the evening in the kitchen area, helping set up drinks and pulling out pong tables, but soon enough it gets way too fucking hot inside, even for October, and Sid decides it’s worth it to snag a beer and head outside. There’s a small contingent of seniors chilling on the porch couches, Kuni and Duper and Julie all slumped around and looking exhausted, and Julie waves him over, patting the couch cushions next to her in invitation.

“Sid!” she says, leaning over to give him a side hug. “You going to join us olds out here?”

“Figured I might,” Sid says, sitting heavily next to her and stretching out his legs in front of him.

“I can’t believe you’re wearing those,” Kuni says quietly, nodding towards Sid’s Crocs, which, whatever. He was pouring drinks earlier, and no one wants beer on their Vans.

“Fuck off,” Sid says, flipping him off and leaning back into the couch.

“Want a hit, Captain?” Duper asks, waving his joint, but Sid just shakes his head, taking a long pull of beer and settling in next to Julie.

The conversation quickly bounces back after Sid sits down, the three of them talking about the amount of shit they have to do before graduation and their plans for next year -- most of which seems to be that they have no plans. Sipping his beer and relaxing into the couch, Sid just listens, occasionally humming an agreement but mostly just letting the conversation wash over him.

“It’s weird,” Julie says, taking a sip of her drink and leaning back against the couch. Her hair fans out around her head like the halos of angels in the medieval paintings that decorate Sid’s textbook on the Middle Ages. “Like, I don’t know – it’s weird to think that this time next year, I’ll be somewhere else, you know?”

“Don’t talk about that shit,” Duper says, pointing his blunt at Julie before passing it on to Kuni. “I’m not even thinking about graduation until I pass Orals. And Writtens.”

“Ugh,” Julie replies, twisting in order to peer at Sid. “You’re lucky. You have time to not think about this shit.”

“Mmm,” Sid hums, taking a sip of his beer and tilting his head back, shutting his eyes. Through the wall he can hear the thuds of the bass in the basement, music piping up through windows that are still half open, even in late October.

“I say don’t worry about it until summer,” Kuni says, handing the blunt back to Duper and stretching his arms above his head. “I’m going to go find Rachel. Need anything?”

“Nope, ‘m good,” Julie says, nodding to herself. “Unless you find Caro. Tell her her girlfriend’s lonely.”

“I’ll be on the lookout,” Kuni says, turning his baseball cap backwards and heading inside.

Silence falls over the porch, Duper smoking his joint and Julie almost falling asleep on Sid’s shoulder. It takes a few seconds for Sid to even realize Julie’s saying anything.

“What?” he asks, and Julie lifts her head a little.

“You need a somebody,” she says, nodding to herself. “I got a Caro, and Kuni has Rachel, and Duper’s got Carole-Lyne even though she lives fucking far away. We all got someone except you.”

“I’m okay,” Sid tries, but Julie just ignores him. 

“It’d be good for you. Loosen you up, you know? Maybe you just need to go, like, dance with someone or something. Doesn’t have to be serious.”

“Yeah, Captain,” Duper calls, smiling lazily at him from across the porch. “You could get laid, stop thinking about papers or the frat for once.”

“I don’t know – I think I’ll stick to out here tonight,” Sid says, turning his cup in his hands and carefully not looking Julie in the eye. “You’re gonna get cold, you know? Maybe I should just keep you warm.”

“Got Caro comin’,” Julie replies, smiling at him and patting his thigh heavily. “Go dance it out, buddy.”

Sid winces at the nickname, but when Duper raises his eyebrows, he stands up and heads inside.

He makes it all the way to the living room, skirting around the pong tables and a spill of something in the doorway, before he runs into Geno, who smiles at him. “Sid!” he says, throwing an arm around Sid’s shoulders, even more affectionate after a couple of beers and probably some vodka too. “You come in, go dance?”

As soon as he asks it, Sid loses any and all desire to go downstairs, even though he knows he could. Down there, there’s a girl from his Middle Eastern history class in Alpha, an ex lab partner from Geo 110, even one of Paulie’s English major friends who smokes and wears plaid and always comes to Phi stuff only to flip his hair and not really dance. Any of them would say yes. But none of them compare to the weight of Geno’s arm around Sid’s shoulders, Geno’s heat warm against his side, because Sid’s stupidly fucked when it comes to Geno and there’s no fucking getting out of it.

“Just getting a refill,” he says finally, showing Geno his empty cup, and Geno groans.

“Just refill? Boring,” he says, sing-song and a little too loud.

“Hey,” Sid replies, not even sounding offended because when he’s drunk it’s harder to act like he doesn’t think Geno’s fucking amazing all of the time.

“Is okay,” Geno says, leaning down to whisper hot in Sid’s ear. “You not really boring.”

“Oh,” Sid says, glad he can blame the flush in his cheeks on being a lightweight instead of – whatever. “Good.”

“Would not let you,” Geno says, shaking Sid’s shoulders a little. “Can’t let you be boring, would be -- sad. Very sad.”

“I’m not sad,” Sid tells him, because he’s not, Flower’s occasional meaningful glances can go fuck themselves.

“Sad,” Geno repeats, grip tightening on Sid’s bicep. “But not worry. Still like you anyways -- and now I make sure you not boring, yes? Start with new beer.” With that, he plucks Sid’s cup out of his hand, waving it over at Suttsy, who’s currently closest to the makeshift bar. “Suttsy! New beer for Sid?”

Suttsy rolls his eyes, but comes over anyways, taking the cup out of Geno’s hand and heading back towards the bar. “What kind do you want, Sid?”

“Whatever,” Sid says.

Geno scoffs. “He mean he want light beer or thing with rum. Very picky. Like cat.”

For a second, Suttsy just blinks, gaze flicking between the two of them, but Geno waves at him with his free hand and Suttsy finally turns towards the bar.

“I said whatever,” Sid says, turning in Geno’s grip to look at him, but Geno just smirks, sloppy and more than a little tipsy. 

“You lie. You pickiest.”

“Am not,” Sid replies, but it’s hard to stay irritated at Geno, who seems to know it, judging by the smirk.

“Is okay, Sid. Remember? Say I like you even if boring,” Geno replies, taking the hideously orange snapback off his head and shoving it onto Sid’s, pushing until the brim gets in Sid’s eyes.

“Stop, stop, G,” Sid protests, trying to shove the totally ugly hat off his head, but Geno just clucks at him.

“Look so sad, need to cheer up. Drink and hat, that help.” With that, Geno fusses with the angle of his hat on Sid’s head, tongue poking out between his teeth as he concentrates on getting the brim to sit just right. After a few seconds, Sid stops squirming, though he still feels weird and shivery when Geno pats him on the shoulder, hard.

“There! Perfect,” Geno declares, beaming and pulling Sid back under his arm. “Flat Stanley! Bring us drink?”

Suddenly Suttsy appears in Sid’s view, passing them back their newly filled red cups and nodding before scurrying back towards the bar. Sid barely even remembers to shout a thank you before Geno plucks at his drink and sniffs it.

“Rum and Coke! See, babies learning.” He hands Sid back his drink and takes a sip of his own. “Perfect. Want to try?”

“What is it?” Sid asks, unable to help wrinkling his nose.

Geno shrugs. The movement makes his arm resettle around Sid’s shoulders, pulling him even closer. Sid can feel his warmth all up and down his side. “That matter? Has vodka, most important thing.”

“I don’t know,” Sid says, because the thing about vodka is it hasn’t always been his best friend.

“Here, I help,” Geno says, and before Sid can do anything, Geno’s holding his cup up in front of his face and tilting it, and it’s drink or spill mysterious booze all over his shirt.

Sid drinks.

“That tasted like floor cleaner,” he tells Geno as soon as the cup is safely away from his face. “Like, seriously, floor cleaner. Or nail polish remover.”

Laughing, Geno just uses the hand around Sid’s shoulders to reach up and ruffle his hair. “Wimp,” he says, sounding fond. It makes something in Sid’s chest burn, and Sid doesn’t think he can blame it on the vodka. 

“Shut up,” he says a little too late, but Geno just laughs some more.

“Is okay. No need to impress me. I see you freshman year, can never be cool.” He sticks his tongue out at Sid with a wink, and then says, “Guess you okay, though. Even if boring and not cool.”

Sid tries his best to glare at Geno, but he can’t quite manage it. “Stop calling me boring,” he says, as not-whiny as possible.

“Fine,” Geno says, slow and reluctant, “you not boring, I _guess_.” He pulls Sid in tighter in a way that’s probably meant to show he’s just kidding, but it just -- it isn’t _fair_.

The thing is, Sid wasn’t always in love with Geno. Freshman year, they were just friends -- good friends, the kind of friendship that felt easy and uncomplicated. Hanging out with Geno felt like hanging out with Colby from home, the kind of relationship stemming from eating construction paper together in kindergarten and picking each other up on the playground. Half the time Sid felt like he and Geno had been friends for all of their lives, instead of a year.

And then Geno had come back from summer break tanned and grinning and full of pictures from places Sid could only ever dream of visiting, and Sid’s stomach had twisted a little, but he’d ignored it. He was good at ignoring it -- he and Geno were roommates now that they got to live in the house, sharing the big bedroom on the third floor that got too hot during the summer and overlooked the backyard, and Sid wasn’t going to think shit about Geno when he was six feet away, sprawled on his bed watching Russian soaps he thought Sid didn’t know about. Having a crush on Geno was -- stupid. It was stupid and doomed and Sid knew better.

But Geno had just continued to be easy to hang out with, easy to like, funny and sweet and only a dick in a nice way if that made any sense, and it turned out that it didn’t matter that Sid knew better, because he still had the kind of crush that made him feel warm and excited and awful, all at the same time.

Coming back for junior year to a Geno who was single, well. That just made everything worse.

“You okay?” Sid hears, and he looks up from where he was nursing his rum and Coke to find Geno looking worried, arm still around Sid’s shoulders. “Very quiet.”

“I’m fine,” Sid says, trying hard to believe it.

Geno just gives him a look. “Not how fine sound. Need more drink? Dance?” He pauses, and then says, “Cute friend?”

“No, no,” Sid replies, too quickly to be casual. “No, I don’t -- I. I’ll be okay, G.”

Geno frowns at him, but doesn’t keep asking, for which Sid is quietly, pathetically grateful.

For a while, they just hang out in the back of the room, watching the pong games and drinking slowly. Sid thought Geno had been playing, but G doesn’t seem inclined to leave, just keeps standing next to Sid, hand hot around Sid’s arm. He even turns down Nealer’s offer to play, waving him off and taking another sip of his floor polish.

“You don’t have to stick around,” Sid says, turning a little in Geno’s hold to look up at the side of Geno’s face. “If you want to go --”

“Not want,” Geno says quickly, mouth quirking into a smile as he takes another sip. “Just fine hanging out with boring captain.”

“Oh,” Sid says, and fuck, he can’t even stop his own smile. His face is probably an open fucking book, and he can’t even stop himself.

“Promise,” Geno says, turning a little further, and now Sid can see his whole face, thrown in shadow thanks to the shitty lighting on this side of the room. “You good enough for me.”

“Oh,” Sid repeats. He knows he sounds like an idiot, but -- but. He feels hyper aware of Geno’s grip on his arm, of how Geno’s stupid fucking snapback is falling in his eyes, at the way Geno’s glancing down at him. Even as he sucks in a breath, heart beating a little too fast, he wonders if he’s imagining the way Geno’s leaning closer. He thinks, hysterically, about how they’re in the back, how no one will notice them, how if Geno leaned down that last few inches, it would be easy.

“Sid!”

Sid jumps about a foot and spins to find Jayson, who’s looking panicky. “Yeah?”

“Um, so, uh, there’s someone like, projectile vomiting out of one of the windows on the second floor? Do we need to call anyone?”

Sid sighs and pushes his cup into Geno’s hand. “Okay, show me,” he says, following Jayson out and carefully not looking behind him, because. He’s not sure he wants to know what Geno’s face looks like right now.

-

Sid’s alarm goes off at nine the next morning, and he groans.

“Shut off,” Geno mumbles from his side of the room, and Sid fumbles around on his desk to find his phone, finally managing to shut the fucking alarm off.

“Why that even on?” Geno asks.

Sid blearily blinks his eyes open, peering out at Geno from under his comforter. “I don’t fucking remember,” he mumbles back, which is of course when his phone buzzes again.

_rise and shine! you and g coming to breakfast?_

“That fucker,” Sid grumbles, slowly pushing himself up to sitting and scrubbing at his eyes. “Duper wants us to do breakfast.”

“Fuck that shit,” Geno groans. Sid watches him roll over in his blanket, some hair and his nose sticking out and not a lot else. “Sleep instead.”

Sid’s phone buzzes again. _were doin maple counterrrrr come downstairs already_

“He says they’re going to Maple Counter,” Sid says, already resigning himself to getting up even though he feels like ass. Of course Duper picks the one breakfast place he knows Sid will never turn down, because Duper’s an asshole who wants to make him suffer. “You coming?”

For a long second, there’s nothing. Then, slowly, Geno emerges from his comforter burrito looking absolutely miserable. “Ugh,” he groans, squinting at Sid.

“Don’t die until we get there,” Sid tells him as he pulls the cleanest and closest sweatshirt on hand over his head.

Geno just makes another noise like a dying animal as he slowly swings himself out of bed. “Die on you,” he says. “You carry body back here.”

“Ew,” Sid tells him, wrinkling his nose before groping around for his boat shoes, because tying shoe laces seem like way too much. “Now, you coming or not?”

“I coming, I get up,” Geno groans, and with a lot of thudding noises, he finally makes it to standing up, or at least Sid thinks so. “Too fucking early.”

“It’s only --” Sid checks his phone and winces. “9:15. Not that bad.”

“Very bad,” Geno replies, making more dying animal noises. “Worst.”

Sid shrugs and finds his wallet and keys, shoving them into pockets indiscriminately. “At least we’re getting breakfast,” he says, heading towards the door.

The look Geno shoots him, exasperated and unimpressed, makes it pretty clear what he thinks of that, but he still follows Sid out the door and down the stairs towards the front hall.

When they make it downstairs, they find Duper holding court over a mix of upperclassmen and pledges, all of whom are in various stages of being hungover as shit. “Morning, Captain!” he calls as Sid and Geno make it to the bottom of the stairs. “How are you two feeling?”

“Fuck off, Duper,” Geno tells him, right before he rests his head on Sid’s shoulder with a thunk. “So. Fucking. Tired.”

“Well, cheer up, buttercup,” Duper tells him. “It’s a fucking beautiful day.”

“Why am I even here?” Bort asks, apparently to the universe at large. Beau, who’s basically sprawled all over him, nods in agreement.

“You want to know why I gathered you here?” Duper asks way too loudly, and Sid blearily looks over at him. “Hangover brunch.”

“Hangover brunch?” Beau asks, looking a little pale, and Duper nods decisively.

“You’ll see, Sunshine. Tiny pancakes can cure anything.”

-

Sid’s fairly certain that the staff at the Maple Counter hate them. After all, they tend to always come in big groups on Sunday mornings and inevitably fill up the waiting area benches while the old people coming in from church stare at them, Tanger flirts with every waitress in the place indiscriminately, and, inevitably, someone tries to do the apple pancake challenge and fails. Still, at this point Hangover Brunch has become an infrequent but nonetheless important Phi tradition, and Duper isn’t all that wrong -- tiny pancakes really can cure anything.

After a half-hour wait, the eight of them get seated at one of the long bench tables by the windows, Sid getting boxed in by the wall as Geno slides in next to him. “Scoot over,” Geno mumbles, pushing at Sid’s shoulder, and Sid sits even closer to the wall to give him a bit more room. Somehow though, despite all of his maneuvering, Geno still is all pressed up against him, the heat of his thigh tangible even through Sid’s shorts.

“So,” Beau says, staring down at the menu, “where are the tiny pancakes that cure everything?”

“Middle page,” Kuni tells him, scanning his own menu -- he tends to go for the egg dishes. 

“What are you getting?” Bort asks Sid, staring down at the menu wide-eyed and overwhelmed.

Sid opens his mouth to answer, but Geno beats him to it. “Bacon pancake and coffee.” When Sid elbows him, he just grins back, tongue poking out between his teeth. “Get every time. Never change.”

“Because it’s delicious,” Sid protests weakly, but Geno just laughs.

“Sid not like new thing,” he tells Bort, his knee bumping Sid’s under the table and then staying there, pressed up against Sid in a way that Sid’s just not going to think about while hungover and in a restaurant. “Too picky. Always go with same old, same old.”

“It’s not pickiness,” Sid says, nudging Geno with his shoulder. “I just -- you know. I like what I like.”

“Picky,” Tanger says from the other end of the table, and Geno laughs.

“See? Tanger agree. Means I’m right.”

“Shut up,” Sid mumbles, rubbing at his temples and wishing he had a good scowl so he could get them all to stop giving him shit.

Fortunately, Beau then decides to start talking about some ridiculous reality show he’s addicted to and has apparently made Bort start watching, giving everyone a chance to make fun of Beau’s taste in television rather than Sid’s breakfast order. When the waitress comes by to ask for their order, Sid doesn’t even get that much teasing, just an eyeroll from Tanger, and Tanger always eyerolls his food choices anyways because he’s a fucking foodie snob.

Geno still hasn’t moved his knee away from Sid’s, and Sid tries not to overthink it. They are a little squished, after all. It’s totally fine.

Their waitress comes back with coffee, and Sid gets to work fixing his just so, only for Geno to steal it right before he can take a sip. “What the fuck, G?”

Geno just grins at him, taking a long, obnoxious slurp before setting down Sid’s mug. “Not sweet enough,” he says, dropping his hand down, fingers brushing against Sid’s thigh.

Sid waits, but Geno doesn’t move his hand. Finally, he manages, “Well, maybe that’s because it’s not your fucking coffee.”

With a laugh, Geno turns back to the rest of the table. Sid grabs his coffee and takes a sip as he scans everyone’s faces, but -- this is stupid. It’s not like anyone can see that under the table, Geno’s tapping Sid’s thigh, knee pressed against his.

He decides to stop worrying and take a long sip of coffee instead.

-

“Uh-oh, look out,” Duper says as Sid comes through the front door. “It must be that time of the year again.”

Sid rolls his eyes, hefting his textbooks a little higher as he walks through the hall. “Fuck off, Duper.”

From his spot in the living room, where he’s probably playing Call of Duty or some shit, Duper laughs and nudges one of the pledges -- Bort? Sid thinks it’s Bort, anyways -- as he takes out one of Tanger’s guys on the screen. “Look out, young pledgling. Sid’s in midterm mode.”

“Midterm mode?” Bort asks, and Sid can see him glancing over the back of the couch towards where Sid’s standing.

“Don’t listen to him,” Sid says, stopping inside the doorway to watch Tanger revive and come after Duper with a vengeance. “Duper’s full of shit.”

“No, man, it’s totally a thing,” Tanger says absently. “You totally do this -- fucking shit, you fucker, where the fuck did that come from?”

“I’m better than you, dumbfuck,” Duper says, tilting his shoulders and shoving Tanger into the couch, where he almost hits Kuni and his pile of printouts. “Anyways, midterm mode, young Bort, is what Sid does whenever there are exams coming up.”

“He turns into a terrible fun-hating hermit,” Tanger adds, punching the air in victory as he takes out one of Duper’s guys. “Take that, asshole!”

“Whatever, dickweed,” Duper snaps back. “Anyways, he like holes up in his room and studies all the time and comes down to yell at us when we play Kanye too loud. And won’t drink.”

“Super boring,” Tanger adds.

“I’m not boring, I just want to actually pass my classes, unlike you fuckers,” Sid replies, heading towards the stairs. “You can party once exams are done.”

“ _Boring_ ,” Duper repeats, shouting it as Sid starts the trek up to the third floor. Sid reaches behind him to flip Duper off in reply.

If he’s being totally truthful, Sid will admit that he does have certain -- rituals, maybe. He definitely has a certain way of doing things when it comes to studying, but that’s because his methods work, and he’d like to pass his fucking classes, and seriously, the other guys can go fuck themselves. Just because he doesn’t blow off midterms in favor of Thirsty Thursday or the weird drinking games Flower finds on Buzzfeed doesn’t mean he’s boring.

“Why,” he complains as he walks into their room, “do people keep calling me boring in this house? No fucking respect.”

“Because you very boring,” Geno says, not looking up from where he’s probably watching Russian soap operas again. “Drink same drink, wear same dumb Crocs --”

“My Crocs are not dumb,” Sid interrupts.

Geno looks up at him over his laptop. “Crocs _very_ dumb,” he says, and Sid scowls at him. “Anyways, do same thing over and over. School, captain, school, captain. So boring.”

He’s sticking his tongue out, though, so Sid thinks he’s kidding. Probably.

“Ugh,” he groans, flopping onto his bed and refusing to look at his backpack, which is full of far too many readings and way too much study material to contemplate right now. “Everyone’s an asshole. Especially you.”

“Just so long as I best asshole,” Geno says, grinning at Sid, and fuck. Sid can’t even stay mad.

“Whatever makes you happy,” he says, trying for long-suffering, but he thinks Geno knows he doesn’t mean it.

“Make me very happy,” Geno says, nodding once and then turning back to his laptop and whatever stupidly overdramatic show he’s watching today.

With a sigh, Sid hauls out his printouts and settles in to read. 

-

Sid doesn’t know why Thanksgiving break always sneaks up on him, but it does. Maybe it’s because it’s American Thanksgiving, not _real_ Thanksgiving, but for some reason every year he’s managed to forget it’s a thing until his mom is already emailing him flight itineraries.

“I bought tickets for Geno too -- you did say he’s coming again, right?” his mom asks over the phone.

Sid nods, even though she can’t see him. “I asked him like a month ago. He sounded pretty excited.” Actually, he had sounded exhausted, since it was in the middle of midterms, but Geno always likes being able to go somewhere instead of being stuck on campus for breaks. Not to mention he’s come home with Sid before -- not all the time, but every Thanksgiving, anyways.

“Good,” Trina says matter-of-factly. “Taylor’s very excited to see you both, as is your dad. Have you started packing yet?”

“ _Mom_ ,” Sid whines, staring down his history textbook and groaning. “I’ll pack in time, don’t worry about it.”

“I just want to make sure,” Trina replies. “And you’ll remind Geno, won’t you?”

“Yeah Mom, don’t worry,” Sid tells her firmly. “We’ll be there before you know it.”

“I’ll make all your favorites,” Trina says, “and don’t forget to ask what kind of dessert Geno likes.”

“I told you Mom, he’ll eat anything. Remember when he demolished your maple crisp?”

“I just want to make sure we feed him properly! He’s so skinny,” Trina says.

Sid exhales loudly and rolls his eyes. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to eat everything in our house, okay? We’ll see you on Sunday night, love you, bye.”

“Bye,” Trina replies, sounding long-suffering, before finally hanging up.

On the Sunday before break, Sid gets Marcel to drive them both to the airport, promising good whiskey in return for not killing his car. Geno’s pretty much dead on his feet, of course -- Sid practically had to roll him out of bed and down the stairs, and even a full half an hour later he still looks like he wants to roll over and fall right back asleep.

The local airport is tiny enough that security is a joke, both of them getting through in minutes. Geno immediately drops into one of the seats, head rolling back as he groans, “Too early.”

“You’re just shit at getting up,” Sid shoots back, stepping between Geno’s legs and looking down at him. “If it weren’t for me, you would oversleep all the time and miss everything.”

“Would not,” Geno disagrees, glaring at him. The moment’s ruined when he breaks into a yawn, covering his mouth with one hand. “Can get up just fine.”

“You and I both know I’m the only reason you made it to Orgo at all last year,” Sid replies, nudging Geno in the knee as he waits for their gate to be called already. “Besides, you’ll get to spend a week sleeping at my actual house, rather than at Phi. At least try to stay awake long enough to get on the plane.”

“No,” Geno replies petulantly, pouting up at Sid. “I sleep on you. Sleep best.”

“Fuck no,” Sid says, kicking Geno again. “You’re heavy. And you drool.”

“ _You_ drool,” Geno replies. “Who fall asleep after every party? You. Always drool.”

“Do not,” Sid says, which is when they’re interrupted by the airport announcing that it’s time to board.

One transfer and god knows how many hours later, they tumble out of the Halifax airport to find Sid’s dad waiting in the pick-up area, window down as he leans out the door. “You boys need any help?”

“We got it,” Sid replies, waiting for the back hatch to open so he can toss in his duffle.

Still, Troy gets out of the car anyways, wrapping Sid up in a hug and patting him firmly on the back. “Good to see you, kiddo,” he says, and Sid nods back, face turned into his dad’s jacket.

“Good to be home,” Sid replies.

They break apart, and then Troy turns towards Geno. “Geno! Good to see you too,” he says, smiling wide, and wraps Geno up in a hug. Judging by the expression on Geno’s face, he wasn’t quite expecting it, but soon enough he relaxes into it, arms slowly wrapping around Troy’s shoulders.

“Good to see,” Geno says, still sounding a little stunned, but when he glances at Sid over Troy’s shoulder, he’s grinning.

The drive back to Cole Harbor isn’t particularly bad -- even though it’s crisp and cold, it isn’t raining too much, and they spend most of the drive looking out at the scenery. Troy keeps up a running commentary of things he thinks Sid ought to know about, like the new restaurant opening up and the status of the high school hockey team. “They’re not as good as when you were on it, of course,” Troy says as he takes a turn, “but they’re getting there.”

“How’s Taylor doing?” Sid asks, and Troy grins.

“Won her last one. She’s turning into a real goalie, for how old she is. Once she gets up to high school, I think she’ll have a shot at starting,” he says. Then, he looks up at the rearview mirror. “How are you doing, Geno?”

“Me?” Geno repeats, glancing up. Sid twists a little in his seat to look at him, and finds Geno blinking slowly, looking like he just woke up.

Troy just nods. “Classes going okay?”

“I --” Geno rubs his eyes, glancing between Sid and Troy before finally replying. “Good. Classes are -- good. Hard, sometimes, but not -- not bad.”

“That’s good to hear,” Troy says. “What’s your major again? Sid’s told me, but my memory isn’t always that great.”

“Biology,” Geno says, looking somewhere between startled and pleased. Sid tries to give him as encouraging as a grin he can -- he doesn’t really get why Geno looks so surprised that his dad’s making conversation, since he’s been to Sid’s house before and everything, but he chalks it up to sleep deprivation.

“Biology!” After taking the turn down the street to their house, Troy glances back in the rearview mirror. “Little different from history, huh.”

“Bit different, yes,” Geno says, and now he finally looks enough like his usual self to stick his tongue out at Sid. “Better.”

“You go ahead and think that,” Sid replies, rolling his eyes, and Geno’s grin widens.

“Definitely think that,” he says, beaming at Sid. “Everyone know science best. Means I better than you.”

“Like anyone believes that,” Sid chirps back, turning a little further in the passenger seat. “Everyone knows I’m better than _you_.”

He expects to get another chirp back, one of Geno’s standards about being the best, but instead Geno just smiles, smaller but somehow better than his normal cheesy grin. “True,” he says. Sid waits for the chirp, but nothing comes. When he raises his eyebrows at Geno, Geno just smiles a little wider and looks out the window.

“Well,” Troy says, startling Sid badly enough that he jumps in his seat and hits his head on the roof of the car, which hurts like a motherfucker. “We’re here.”

They unload the car in relative silence, Sid shouldering his duffle and Geno hauling his up the front walk. It’s already getting dark, and Troy flips the front porch light on as he steps inside the house, even as Sid and Geno both fight off yawns.

“Trina! Taylor!” Troy calls as they stomp in the front hall, Sid dropping his bag by the foot of the stairs and Geno putting his next to it. “Guess who’s here!”

At first, Sid just hears pounding feet. Then, he’s got a couple of arms latched around his waist, and he staggers back, nearly taking out the photos on the hallway wall. “Sid!” Taylor yells as she hugs him, “Sid, you’re back! It’s been, like, forever.”

“Just a couple of months,” Sid says, even as he puts his own arms around Taylor, holding on tight. “Jesus, did you grow?”

“Language, Sid,” Troy warns, but Taylor just giggles into Sid’s sweatshirt.

“I grew at least six centimeters,” she says, finally detaching enough to look Sid in the face.

“You’re going to be taller than me,” Sid replies, right before nodding at Geno. “Maybe not G, though.”

“Geno!” Taylor shouts, letting go of Sid to trip her way over to Geno, wrapping her arms around his waist. Geno doesn’t quite fall as off-balance as Sid did, but he still audibly groans.

“Taylor,” he says, even as he leans over to hug her better. “You getting tall! Feels like forever since I see you.”

“That’s because it’s _been_ forever,” Taylor complains, stepping back and pouting at them both. “College sucks.”

“No it doesn’t,” Sid protests, but he’s interrupted by the arrival of his mom, who immediately sweeps him into a hug.

“Hi, honey,” Trina says, leaving floury handprints on his sweatshirt as she pulls away. “It’s so good to see you -- are you eating? Real food?”

“Mom! I’m eating, okay?” Sid replies, frowning. “I eat.”

Trina rolls her eyes. “I mean more than PB&Js, Sidney.”

“I don’t just eat peanut butter!” Glancing over at Geno, Sid silently pleads for back up. “I don’t! Right, G?”

For a second, Geno doesn’t say anything, but then -- Sid can _watch_ the grin spread over his face, sly and mischievous. “He lie, Mrs. Crosby,” he says, grinning at Sid like a fucking dick. “Only eat peanut butter. Not know how to cook.”

“Now that’s someone I can trust. Hello, you,” Trina says, hugging Geno too. This time, Geno just melts into the hug, even though he easily has a head on Sid’s mom. “How are you doing?”

“Good, Mrs. Crosby. Thank you for having me, and for tickets. Should let me buy,” Geno says, because of course he’s infinitely more polite to Sid’s parents than he’d ever be to Sid himself.

“It’s no trouble -- we had some extra miles anyways, and what’s better than getting you up here?” asks Troy, even as Trina pulls away and stares hard into Geno’s face.

“Also, I thought we told you last year -- you don’t have to call us Mr. and Mrs. Crosby. Trina’s just fine.”

“Sorry,” Geno replies, looking slightly sheepish. “Not mean --”

“You’re fine, Geno,” Trina replies, patting him on the arm and leaving flour on his sleeve. “Now, do you boys want some dinner? Taylor helped me make soup.”

“It’s chicken and dumplings,” Taylor says, grinning at Sid wide enough that he can see her braces. “Mom let me butcher the chicken. It was _so cool_.”

Sid grins back. “Sounds great, you guys,” he says, even as he hangs back a little so his parents and Taylor can go to the kitchen first.

Once the rest of his family’s left, Sid turns to check on Geno, who still looks slightly nervous -- which is just dumb. It’s not like Geno hasn’t stayed here before, or been given the spiel about calling Sid’s mom by her name, or anything. There’s no reason for Geno to be as on edge as he is.

Still, Sid can’t exactly ask that, so instead he reaches out with an elbow and nudges Geno’s arm. “You okay?”

Geno starts, turning to look at Sid. “Yes, yes, okay,” he says, giving Sid one of his big goofy grins, the one where it almost looks like he’s forgotten how to smile. Still, he seems jumpy, and Sid -- he just doesn’t get _why_.

“You sure? You seem kind of -- I don’t know,” he trails off, shrugging. “You know my parents aren’t going to like, eat you or something, right?”

“Yes, I know. Sid family best, after mine,” Geno says, shrugging right back. “We go eat?”

Sid frowns, but nods. “I -- yeah, let’s eat.”

-

For a break that’s meant for the wrong Thanksgiving, it’s still super nice just to laze around at home and sleep. Both of Sid’s parents have work, and Taylor has school, so mostly Sid and Geno hang out, eating snacks and avoiding whatever schoolwork might be due the first Monday back from break. When Taylor gets home from middle school, they switch to watching movies, Taylor and Sid chatting until Geno throws food at them in order to shut them up.

“Too loud,” Geno says when Sid and Taylor both give him their best, most betrayed look. “Chatty Crosbys make hard to hear movie.”

“Sorry,” Taylor says petulantly, crossing her arms and turning back to the TV.

After a few seconds, Sid chucks one of the pretzels back at Geno. When Geno glances up, he waves the remote. “Do you want the subtitles?”

For a moment, Geno just looks at him, but then he smiles, big and wide, and fuck. “Thanks, Sid,” he says.

“No problem,” Sid says, feeling his ears burn. It’s nothing to even blush over, it’s just Geno smiling at him, but he just -- whatever. He can get over his stupid feelings.

“Will help when you and Taylor start talking again,” Geno replies, and Sid scowls at him.

“We’re not _that_ bad,” he says, but Geno just sticks his tongue out at them.

“Very loud,” he says, and then excessively shushes Sid when he tries to reply. “Shh -- I’m watch.”

“Fine,” Sid says, reaching out with his leg to kick Geno’s knee. “Asshole,” he mumbles under his breath.

“Language,” Geno says, sticking his tongue out and kicking Sid right back. Sid probably shouldn’t find it charming.

The rest of the week passes in pretty much the same way -- fighting over what to watch with Taylor, who refuses to watch _Rocky_ even though it’s a good movie, or playing ball hockey in the back yard, Geno refereeing when he isn’t trying to steal Sid’s stick out of his hands, or sending Snapchats of Sid falling on his ass. It’s nice, just hanging out somewhere else, a little cleaner and nicer than the frat house full of empties and their bros playing King’s Cup.

It feels different, too -- different from the other times Geno’s stayed here. He’s still polite to Sid’s parents, and great with Taylor even when Sid himself is getting pissed off, still feeding Sam under the kitchen table and imperiously picking movies to watch, but. Something about it feels weird, like Geno’s trying harder this time around, like he wants to leave a good impression, even though Sid could tell him that his parents already love Geno.

Every once in a while, Sid catches Geno looking at him, too, and it feels -- he doesn’t know how to describe it. It’s almost heavy, the way Geno looks at him, like he’s taking in every detail, and Sid doesn’t know what it means. He feels on edge, like he’s waiting for something to happen, but Geno always looks away again.

He’d like to know what it means, but -- Flower would probably say he’s being chickenshit, but Sid doesn’t want to risk anything. He likes having all of Geno’s attention, and it’s not like he doesn’t like it when Geno stares at him. Questioning it might mean it stops -- or, even worse, that things get awkward between them, and no matter how much Sid might want Geno, he wants that even less.

So instead, he plays ball hockey, and watches more Disney Channel movies than he’s seen before in his life because Taylor’s puppy dog eyes are better than his own, and he feels Geno looking at him, steady and warm.

-

“Hey, so,” Sid says on Friday night as he scrolls through his texts, “Colby wants me to come over and hang out.”

“Who?” Geno asks, looking up from his phone and feet tapping Sid’s thigh.

“Colby,” Sid repeats, nudging Geno’s knee in the hopes that he’ll move his legs. Of course, Geno immediately stretches out more, because he’s a dick. “You know, the guy I’ve known since kindergarten? That guy?”

“Oh, right, that guy,” Geno says, in a tone that suggests he doesn’t care. The punch to the knee he gets is totally deserved. “Ow, Sid!”

“Don’t be a douche,” Sid says, quickly glancing around to make sure Taylor isn’t paying attention to them. Fortunately she’s totally focused on watching her Disney Channel movie, and probably didn’t hear Sid, or at least he’s hoping not. “Anyways, he wants me to come over to hang out with some of our high school friends at his place. You wanna come?”

Geno shrugs. “Want me there?”

“Of course,” Sid replies, startled. “Why wouldn’t you come?”

For a second, Geno doesn’t reply, and so Sid kicks him in the thigh. “Ow!” Geno hisses, pouting at Sid, even though Sid is mostly immune to that shit by now. “Is your friend,” he continues, rubbing his thigh like a big baby, “maybe not want me there.”

“Why?” Sid asks again, nudging Geno with his toes. “Colby’s my friend, and you’re my friend. Of course I want both of you to meet each other.”

The look Geno gives him is inscrutable, but Sid just stares back, because it’s not like Geno staring at him is going to make him change his mind. Finally, with a sigh, Geno says, “Okay. If you want, I come with.”

“Good,” Sid says firmly, and he texts Colby back to let him know he’s bringing a friend.

Three hours later and after a quick run to the store for a couple of six packs, they show up at the Armstrong’s house and immediately get ushered inside by Colby’s mom. “How are you, Sid?” she asks, sweeping Sid in a massive hug and studiously ignoring the bags Sid’s holding. “It’s strange having you so far away.”

“It’s nice to be back,” Sid replies, hugging Mrs. Armstrong back as best he can. “Coming over here is always great.”

“Well, we always love having you here,” Mrs. Armstrong says, giving Sid one last pat on the back before taking a step back. “I’m Liz, by the way,” she continues, holding out a hand for Geno to shake.

Geno, looking slightly shell-shocked, takes it. “Evgeni,” he says, and then quickly, “Geno easier, though.”

“Very nice to meet you, Geno,” Mrs. Armstrong says, smiling at them both. “Now, Colby’s downstairs, so the two of you can just head down there. Let me know if you need anything!”

“Of course,” Sid says. “Thanks, Liz.” He gives her a wave before turning and heading down the stairs towards the rec room, Geno following close on his heels.

Sid’s barely stepped into the rec room and dropped the bags on the floor when he hears Colby yelling, “Is that you, Sid?”

“Colby!” Sid yells back, and Colby emerges from the depths of the Armstrong’s massive couches, grinning and practically jumping Sid in order to hug him.

“Fuck, Sid, you look all fraternity-like and shit with that snapback. Do you own salmon shorts yet?”

“No,” Sid protests, giving Colby a pat on the back and trying not to squirm too much. “Besides, it’s too cold for shorts, dumbass.”

“You’re the dumbass,” Colby replies, like a fucking loser. Then, as he steps away, he looks at Geno, eyes getting big. “Who’s this?”

“Colby, this is Geno. He’s one of my brothers in Phi -- we’re roommates in the house.” Sid gestures towards Geno, who’s still standing right behind him.

“Hi,” Geno says, stepping forward and right next to Sid, one elbow bumping into Sid’s back. “Nice to meet.”

“Geno, huh?” Colby asks. “How long have you guys been friends?”

“Since freshmen,” Geno says, a little sharper than he needs to -- Sid glances at him, but Geno isn’t looking at him, instead staring straight at Colby, even as one of his hands fastens around Sid’s elbow. “Roommates since last year. Sid one of best friends at school.”

“Well,” Colby says, staring right back at Geno, “that’s good to hear.”

Sid looks between them, even as Geno’s fingers tighten around his arm. “I thought we could watch a movie or something, yeah? Nothing too intense.”

“Sounds good to me,” Colby says, shrugging.

“Good to me too,” Geno agrees. Everything still feels weird -- but it’s probably just new people or something. Sid knows he’s not the best at meeting somebody new, and he’d probably feel equally out of place meeting Geno’s best friend in Russia or whatever.

“Great. I’ll let you guys pick something,” Sid says, shifting his weight and pulling his arm out of Geno’s grip. “I have to go to the bathroom, so just have something by the time I get back, yeah?”

“For sure,” Colby says, still giving Geno a weird look. “We’ll pick something.”

Sid glances at Geno, but Geno just shrugs at him, so Sid figures it’s safe to leave him, and heads up the stairs towards the bathroom.

When he comes back downstairs, he finds Colby and Geno sitting down on the couch, a big gap between them. It’s clear Sid’s interrupted something -- Colby’s still got one hand up mid gesture, which means both of them shut up before Sid could hear what they were talking about. 

“What’s up?” Sid asks, settling down on the couch between the two of them and kicking his feet up on the coffee table. “You guys pick a movie yet?”

“Yeah,” Colby says, but his voice still sounds weird. “Geno and I were just, you know, coming to an agreement.”

“Oh,” Sid says, glancing over at Geno. Geno just nods back at him, so Sid takes it as his cue to settle back into the couch and grab his beer from Geno’s hand. “Well, let’s get started then.”

“Sure,” Colby says, holding up the remote and hitting play.

Colby clearly picked the movie, since it’s one of the Simon Pegg ones that he fucking loves to watch when he’s trying to be more sophisticated than Transformers 8 or whatever number they’re on by now. He’s even put on subtitles for Geno -- not that Geno couldn’t understand the movie, Sid thinks loyally, but he knows accents are a little harder, especially after a beer or two. Plus, both he and Colby are movie talkers, so they can keep up their comments without making it harder for Geno, which is nice.

About twenty minutes in, when Simon Pegg’s policeman is getting to know his new partner or whoever, Geno makes an unsatisfied noise and moves the arm Sid’s currently leaning on. “Move,” he says, poking Sid with his free hand. “You heavy.”

“Jerk,” Sid chirps, but he sits up a little so Geno can move his arm before settling back against the couch again. “Better?”

Geno takes it as an opportunity to settle his arm around Sid’s shoulders and hums. “Much better,” he agrees quietly, and then he looks over at Colby.

Sid takes it as a cue to look at Colby too, and frowns -- he has a feeling it has something to do with whatever Colby and Geno were talking about when he came back downstairs, but he doesn’t know how to ask, or even if he’ll get an honest answer. Still, whatever it is, Colby just nods and turns back to the TV, and Geno makes a low, satisfied noise in his chest before arranging Sid to his liking, and, well. Sid’s not exactly going to question whatever reason Geno has for making sure they’re basically cuddling, even if it’s just the beer or whatever.

Colby still looks sort of weird, but Sid just kicks the leg resting on the coffee table, meeting Colby’s look and raising his eyebrows. Colby just rolls his eyes back before saying something snarky about the production of _Romeo and Juliet_ currently going on on screen, and Sid figures the topic’s been dropped.

The rest of the movie passes without incident, and they spend a long time just hanging out on the couch, the main menu replaying over and over again since Colby doesn’t seem bothered enough to turn the DVD player off. Instead they slide into a comfortable pile all over the couch, Colby and Sid trading college stories, Geno occasionally adding details in whenever he thinks Sid hasn’t included enough about the most embarrassing parts.

“-- and then he decide mix gin and beer right before Beer Mile is great idea. Not end badly at all,” Geno finishes. Sid can practically hear the shit-eating grin he’s giving the ceiling.

“Oh yeah?” Colby asks, nudging Sid with his toes. “What did Creature do?”

“He puke in bushes outside house,” Geno says with relish, and Sid half-heartedly punches him in the thigh.

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about that,” he says -- okay, whines, whatever -- and then he kicks Colby back. “Also, I thought _someone_ promised they wouldn’t use that stupid nickname anymore.”

“I made no such promise,” Colby shoots back, kicking Sid again. “It suits you. And your giant ass.”

“Fuck off,” Sid snaps back, rolling a little so he’s more comfortably situated against Geno’s chest. “It’s a terrible nickname.”

“Terrible as Captain Canada?” Geno asks, voice a rumble against Sid’s head.

“Fuck you,” Sid tells him, rolling his head back so he can just barely see the line of Geno’s jaw. “Don’t you dare bring that up.”

“Wait, wait,” Colby interrupts, sounding gleeful, “your nickname is _Captain Canada_?”

“My idea,” Geno says smugly.

Sid feels totally justified in sighing as loudly as he can.

They don’t leave the Armstrong’s until midnight or so, and it’s practically pitch black as they go out the front door and towards the family car. Sid’s shivering a little in the cold, but Geno’s close on his heels, barely a step behind.

“That was good, right?” Sid asks, even as he digs in his pocket for his car keys. “You and Colby seemed to get along okay.”

“Was good,” Geno agrees, teeth audibly chattering -- he’s such a baby about the cold. “Good to meet your friends.”

“Good,” Sid says, smiling at Geno over his shoulder. “I’m glad you had a good time.”

“Always have good time with you,” Geno says easily, and fuck, Sid’s glad it’s dark out because then Geno probably can’t see how red his cheeks are.

He finally settles for saying “Oh” like a fucking idiot before finally unlocking the car doors. His cheeks still feel hot.

-

After break, December appears on campus practically overnight. All the leaves disappear, the temperature drops, and Engo and Joey V go on a field trip to find an honest-to-God Christmas tree. Chef Dana even buys them eggnog, though Sid’s eighty percent sure Duper’s already bought a couple fifths of rum to spike it. If it weren’t for the prospect of finals looming over the last three weeks of the semester, Sid would probably be getting started on taking advantage of Duper’s stash, but as it is, he’s stuck reading and rereading articles, trying to buckle down for finals and not resent the guy’s insistence on playing fucking Mariah Carey over and over.

That’s why when Professor Bullano pulls him aside right at the beginning of his Wednesday 2:30 class, Sid can’t help feeling a little panicky -- something about the closeness of finals makes him a little jumpy.

“Sid, would you mind staying after class today?” she asks. 

Sid nods, startled. “Sure,” he replies. He hopes it isn’t about his final paper proposal, but Professor Bullano’s smiling, so he’s probably okay. He hopes.

Of course, by the time class gets out an hour and a half later, Sid’s almost totally forgotten, and it’s only when Professor Bullano clears her throat that Sid stops, already halfway out the door. “Sorry, sorry,” he apologizes, turning around and grabbing the strap of his backpack.

“Not a problem -- and don’t worry, this shouldn’t take too long,” Professor Bullano tells him, shuffling her papers and putting them into her bag.

“Okay,” Sid says, feeling awkward as he shifts his weight from foot to foot. “I -- what did you want to talk to me about?”

“You can go ahead and sit down,” Professor Bullano says with a smile, gesturing towards one of the chairs and leaning back in her own. “Listen, Sid, I asked you to meet with me for only good reasons.”

“I, um -- okay?”

Professor Bullano sits up straight, resting her elbows on the desk and leaning towards him. “Sid, how do you feel about helping with a conference over spring break?”

Sid blinks, shifting so his backpack leans against the chair instead of his leg. “A conference?”

“Yeah, we’re holding a small conference that first week, and I need a few people who can act as student moderators -- you know, opening remarks, student reflections, that sort of thing -- and when I started to put a list of possible people together, yours was the first name I thought of.”

“Oh,” Sid replies, startled. “I -- really?”

“Absolutely,” she replies. “You’ve got a great work ethic, Sid, and I know you’re responsible enough to handle it. So if you don’t mind giving up most of your spring break --”

“No, I -- that would be really great,” Sid says, nodding rapidly. “I’d love to.”

“Great!” Professor Bullano says, clapping her hands together. “I’ll email you the details, but -- I’m so glad you can do this. Finding good student speakers can be a bit of a chore, but I know you’ll do a great job.”

“I’ll try my best,” Sid says.

Professor Bullano just smiles at him. “I’m sure you will, Sid. Thanks again for agreeing to do this. I’ll email you by the end of the week.”

Hefting his bag over his shoulder, Sid stands up. “See you next week,” he says, and Professor Bullano waves him off.

“Next week,” she repeats, and Sid waves back quickly before heading out and down the hall. As he goes, he plugs it into his phone calendar -- sure, it means no cabin over spring break, but he figures the chance to get some actual experience at a conference will be worth it.

-

The day after Sid’s last final, Duper puts it upon himself to throw a party. “We’ve suffered so much,” he says, leaning against the kitchen counter and drinking what Sid hopes is orange juice. “We need to let off some steam.”

“Sure,” Sid replies absently, focusing more on his to-do list than what Duper’s saying. “Do whatever, just don’t get anyone arrested.”

“Way to have faith in me, fearless leader,” Duper bitches, but Sid’s already ignoring him, wondering how much he absolutely has to pack tonight and if he can get Geno to take out the trash in their room.

That’s how, seven hours later, Sid comes back from returning his textbooks to the sound of Brandon manning the decks in the basement floating up the stairs and a beer pong tournament in the center hallway.

“Sid!” Beau shouts, tugging him over to one side of the table, and before he knows it he’s being handed a Solo cup full of terrible keg beer. “Come on, we need another guy on our side!”

Sid probably shouldn’t. He has a flight out early, has to catch a taxi to the airport at five in the morning, and it would be monumentally stupid to fly on a hangover – but he takes a long pull of shitty, shitty beer anyways, finishing half the cup and wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand. “What am I doing, Sunshine?” he asks, even as he hears Duper crowing.

“Taking Nealsy and Bort the fuck out,” Beau replies, and Sid turns towards the table, taking the Ping-Pong ball and narrowing his eyes.

“I can do that,” he says, earning himself a delighted shout from Nealer’s end of the table.

“You going to challenge us, Sid?” Nealer yells, and Sid grins at him, bouncing the ball on the table a couple times.

“Watch me.”

After three rounds in which Sid and Beau totally decimate Nealer and Bort, thanks, the pong tournament has turned into a full on house party. Suttsy’s still on his Calvin Harris kick despite it being super two years ago, and Sid can’t help singing along. “I feel so close to you right now, it’s like a force field,” he half sings, half says under his breath on his way out of the kitchen towards the basement, only to run into someone in the doorway. “Sorry,” he gets out, only to look and find –

“Hi, Sid,” Geno says, smiling down at him and holding his cup just out of harm’s way.

Sid beams back. “Geno!” he says, and he can’t tell if it’s the alcohol or being this close to Geno that’s making him feel warm all over, making his palms itch. “When did you get here?”

“Not long,” Geno replies, catching Sid’s elbow and holding him steady. “You already drunk? Night is young.”

“I’m not _drunk_ ,” Sid insists, because he isn’t. Maybe just a little tipsy is all.

Geno laughs, and oh, maybe he said that last part out loud.

“Is okay,” Geno says with a smile, pulling Sid even closer. “I still like, even if you a lightweight.”

“I’m not a lightweight, ugh,” Sid groans, but Geno just laughs at him again. Sid’s close enough that he can feel Geno’s chest shaking from it, brushing against his arm.

“We go dance, lightweight?” he asks, pulling Sid down towards the stairs and depositing his cup on one of the railings.

“Maybe for a little bit,” Sid concedes, because, well, he doesn’t really like dancing, but Geno’s being all insistent at him, and, well. Everyone knows Sid’s shit at telling Geno no.

True to form, even though this isn’t even an official event, the basement is crowded and hot and smells like the weird mixture of weed, sweat, and Natty Light that’s stunk up Sid’s shirts since freshman year. Apparently a solid percentage of campus has shown up to drink and dance away their stress, because Sid almost loses Geno to the crowd before he feels fingers close around his wrist.

“Come on Sid,” Geno half-shouts, tugging him through the crowd, and Sid follows.

They make it over to one corner, past PK and Carey by the bar and a group of Thetas near the decks. Sid barely touches the wall before Geno’s spinning him so that they’re facing each other, one hand hot on Sid’s wrist.

Geno says something to him, but in the basement it’s impossible to hear it, and Sid shakes his head. “What?” he asks, half-shouting, and Geno leans in, breath hot on Sid’s ear.

“You should dance,” he says.

Sid shakes his head, which in combination with the noise and the alcohol makes it hard to concentrate. “You know I don’t,” he says back.

Geno, however, isn’t taking no for an answer. “Have to dance,” he says, using his grip on Sid’s wrist to tug him even closer, enough that their chests bump. “Don’t be _boring_.”

“I’m not going to – _no_ , G,” Sid protests.

At that, Geno lets go of Sid’s wrist, and Sid wonders if he’s gotten out of it – but then Geno drops his hands to grab Sid’s hips, pulling them closer than Sid thought they would ever get. It makes Sid’s skin feel hot, and he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

“Here,” he hears, and then Geno carefully sets Sid’s hand on his shoulder. When Sid brings up the other to loop them around Geno’s neck, Geno nods at him, ducking his head down again to talk in Sid’s ear. “Now just – move. Easy.”

“I don’t –“ Sid starts, but then Suttsy changes the song and the beat gets loud and low and Sid can’t even hear himself anymore.

“See? Easy,” Geno says, low in Sid’s ear, and Sid realizes he’s been moving along to the beat, hips swaying back and forth under Geno’s palms. “You doing so good.”

“I,” Sid says, but Geno just shakes his head, grip getting tighter and hands burning through Sid’s t-shirt. Sid’s arms feel heavy around Geno’s neck, like they’re impossible to lift, and he doesn’t think Geno wants him to move them anyways. Or at least, he hopes Geno doesn’t want him to move them.

“So good,” Geno whispers, and it makes Sid feel hot and flushed all over, skin buzzing where he can feel Geno’s hands on his hips, Geno’s breath on his neck. He leans on Geno a little more, trying to get his feet under him, and Geno just takes it, pulling Sid closer still. Their chests bump together, and Sid feels aware of how close they are and not. All the beer he had earlier is blurring everything together, each brush of skin and fabric simultaneously too much and not enough. The beat is loud enough to resonate in his rib cage but all he can hear is Geno telling him he’s good, so good.

“Sid,” Geno says again, lips brushing Sid’s jaw, his cheek, and fuck, Sid just wants.

“Yeah, G,” he replies, a little too breathless, looking up at Geno, and he watches as Geno sucks in a breath and licks his lips.

Suttsy changes the song again, some Katy Perry song that everyone knows the words to and that really isn’t suitable for grinding. Sid jumps a little and drops his arms from around Geno’s neck, the change of song shocking him out of whatever they were doing, but Geno just tightens his grip.

“Come on, Sid,” he says, shifting one hand down to settle just above the pocket of Sid’s jeans, and Sid can’t think of a reason to say no. Isn’t going to say no.

“Okay,” he says instead, turning a little to see Geno’s face. “Okay.”

Before he knows it, Geno’s pulling him out of the corner of the basement, past the groups of sorority girls and other Phis and the bar where there’s a cooler of beer dripping on the floor. His grip on Sid’s wrist is tight and hot, enough that Sid wonders if there’ll be marks, after, red splotches left long after Geno’s let go. Together they stumble out of the basement, and Geno pulls him around the corner, towards where the bathrooms are, just beyond the pit of the prop closet.

“Here,” Geno says, tugging Sid into the bathroom, using his height and weight to push Sid up against the wall. The tiles are cool against Sid’s back, a massive contrast to Geno, who’s warm like a furnace as he crowds Sid in.

Sid can hear the sounds of the party, the music loud enough to buzz in his ears even this far away, even as Geno leans in and says, “Sid.” When Sid meets his eyes, his gaze is hot.

“Yeah,” Sid replies, staring up at Geno, unable to keep from licking his lips. “Geno,” and then it doesn’t matter what he says, because Geno’s kissing him.

Objectively, it isn’t that great – Geno’s a little sloppy, everything a little too slick with spit, and Sid can feel the cold tiles against his shoulder blades, the rubber guard for the door handle punching into the small of his back. None of that matters, though, because this is Geno, Geno kissing him, getting one hand into Sid’s back pocket, the other still wrapped around Sid’s wrist. Even here, in the fucking disgusting basement bathroom, Sid can’t think about anything but how Geno’s kissing him, crowding him in and pushing closer, like he can’t get enough.

Of course Sid’s going to kiss back.

As soon as he starts responding, Geno kisses him even harder, even though Sid had almost wondered if it was possible. Still, the pressure is good, perfect, even, and Sid feels like he’s barely keeping up. When Sid reaches to get a hand in Geno’s hair and another up Geno’s shirt, Geno just makes a broken sound into Sid’s mouth that Sid wants to hear over and over again.

They break apart for air, almost sharing breaths, Geno pulling back just enough to look Sid in the eye.

“Come back here,” Sid says without even thinking, and Geno makes a noise like he’s dying right before diving back in again.

This time Geno doesn’t even bother with pleasantries, sucking on Sid’s bottom lip and biting down hard enough to make Sid moan. When Sid gasps a little, trying to get more air, Geno just takes the opening and fucks his tongue into Sid’s mouth, licking in like it’s his, like it’s always been his. Sid tries to give back as good as he gets, twisting his fingers in Geno’s hair and tugging, and it earns him Geno’s hand in his back pocket grabbing at his ass. Soon enough Geno’s moved his other hand down as well, gripping the muscle even as he shoves a thigh between Sid’s legs, and maybe all the shit Sid’s gotten for his ass is worth it if this is the result.

“Geno,” Sid gasps out as Geno starts sloppily kissing down the line of his jaw, the thin skin of his neck, “Geno, fuck, you, _G_ –“ and then Geno bites down, hard, and Sid loses his words.

Geno hums happily as he sucks what is probably going to be a fucking monster of a bruise right under the corner of Sid’s jaw, hands still kneading Sid’s ass. He’s probably smug, the fucker, which Sid would hit him for except for now Geno’s doing something with tongue and teeth that Sid never wants to stop. Instead Sid’s reduced to clawing at Geno’s back with one hand, the other still pulling at the soft hairs at the base of Geno’s skull, and helplessly hitching his hips as Geno drives him out of his goddamn mind.

“Geno,” Sid repeats, over and over again, because there’s a part of him still wondering if he’s dreaming this up, some beer-induced hallucination of Geno kissing him like this, getting his hands on him like this.

Geno looks up then, finally breaking away from Sid’s neck and looking him in the eye again. “Sid,” he says, tugging at his lip with his teeth, and fuck, Sid wants to do that – so he does.

Sid doesn’t know how long they’ve been making out down here, time slipping in between sloppy kisses and grasping hands. There’s just enough friction for them both to get hard, and to be honest, Sid probably wouldn’t even need that – just kissing Geno, sucking on his tongue and getting bruises bitten in the hollow of his throat, is enough to get him going. Still, it’s starting to get a little urgent, and when Geno moves his thigh just enough, Sid can’t help the kind of embarrassing moan that comes out.

Geno stops kissing Sid at that, pulling away just enough to look Sid in the eye. Just before Sid’s about to make another, probably equally embarrassing noise of protest, however, Geno says, eyes flicking down, “Want help with that?”

“I,” Sid says, because yes, yes he does. “Yeah –“

And then the bathroom door bursts open.

Geno jumps, letting go of Sid and turning to look at whoever’s coming in. Sid just barely sees a flash of blond hair before the guy is down on the floor, head in the toilet as he pukes.

It takes a couple seconds, but then finally Sid figures out who it is. “Beau?”

Beau groans back at him. “ _Fuck_ ,” he says finally, voice echoing weirdly thanks to the toilet bowl. “Is that you, Sid?”

Slowly Geno eases the bathroom door open, eyes flicking from Beau to Sid right before he sneaks out. Willing down his boner, Sid crosses the bathroom to gingerly pat Beau’s back. “How’re you doing, Beau?”

“Not awesome,” Beau moans, sounding pretty miserable, which, fair.

“Right,” Sid says. Thinking feels slower than usual, and he knows he should have something supportive or some shit to say, but nothing comes to mind. “Do you need anything?”

Beau makes some noise that could be a yes or a no.

Sid thinks harder. “I could – get Bort?” he finally asks.

That earns him a much more affirmative groan, and Sid sighs and heads out of the bathroom, ducking down the hall to look on the dance floor.

Fortunately Bort isn’t in the thick of things, and it’s easy enough to retrieve him from the gaggle of DGs hitting on him and drag him down the hall. “Take care of Beau, yeah?” Sid says, pushing open the door and pretty much shoving Bort into the bathroom. “Make sure he doesn’t die in the night.” He lets the door swing shut behind Bort, not really bothering to get a yes or no answer in favor of heading up the stairs.

When Sid makes it up to the main floor, he finds Geno standing around at the head of the staircase, scrubbing at his hair. He startles when he sees Sid, jumping back a bit right before glancing around surreptitiously. When he does look at Sid, he’ll barely even look Sid in the eye, like he –

Like he’s guilty.

Oh, Sid thinks, and even as his stomach sinks and he curses himself for being stupid, so fucking stupid for even thinking Geno could want him, would want him –

Well. A good friend would offer him an out.

“So we were pretty drunk,” Sid says, leaning against the wall and glancing up at Geno, even as the embarrassment makes his stomach churn.

Geno nods rapidly. “Think I have too much,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. Sid watches his hand move, and misses the feeling of it against his skin. “Should probably drink some water.”

“Right,” Sid says, forcing himself to stand up straight, to not touch Geno, because Geno won’t want that. “Well, um, I – I should go. Sleep. For my flight tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Geno says, blinking rapidly. “Right. Well – have good flight, if don’t wake up.”

“Yeah,” Sid says, nodding. “I. Um. Good night, G.”

He turns to head up the stairs, only just able to hear Geno’s soft, “Good night, Sid,” as he goes.

When he makes it up to their room, he crashes onto his bed, groaning into the pillow before double-checking that his phone alarm is set so he can catch his taxi out to the airport. It takes a long time for him to fall asleep.


	2. spring

Sid gets back to the house at ass o’clock at night, after a late flight in and a half hour wait for Marcel to come and pick him up.

“Please tell me you treated my car okay,” he says as soon as he hops in the passenger seat, and Marcel just laughs.

“Totally fine,” he says, shifting gears in a way that makes Sid cringe. “You Americans don’t know how to drive.”

“I’m Canadian,” Sid corrects, but Marcel just laughs again and heads down the highway.

The house, when they get there, is dark, barely anyone in the living room. They have a few days before the semester started, but Sid figured he’d want a few days to settle in, get situated before classes start, which means he’s here before everybody except the guys who couldn’t go home at all. It’s weird coming back before everyone else -- the same shitty Christmas lights are strung up above the stairs, the same half-assed tree shoved in the corner right next to the beat up menorah that mysteriously appeared halfway through November and never left. As Sid slowly walks through the house, bag feeling heavier and heavier with every step, he just feels even more tired.

When he pushes open the door to his and Geno’s room, it’s empty, and Sid can’t help sighing in relief. He doesn’t -- he’s not sure how to talk to Geno, and aside from a few texts over break, they didn’t, really.

Geno’s bed’s been slept in, though, and his stuff is thrown around his half of the room, so Sid figures maybe he’s out getting food, or downstairs somewhere -- he needs to stop. It’s not his job to keep tabs on Geno.

It barely takes fifteen minutes to unpack, but Sid’s exhausted by the time he finishes, and he decides against trying to find the other guys in favor of sacking out. He can say his semester hellos tomorrow -- right now he just wants to fucking sleep.

Around two in the morning he gets woken up by the floorboards creaking, but if it is Geno, he doesn’t say anything, and Sid’s able to roll over and pass out again.

-

Spring semester starts slow, everyone trying to shake off the stupor of four weeks of break and remember what it’s like to read five hundred pages in a single weekend. Sid barely even sees the boys as he tries to figure out his schedule, what with fixing registration issues and emailing his advisor at least four times and doing the readings that have already been assigned, but he’s trying not to stress about it -- even though he’s maybe talked to Geno twice since he’s gotten back, and one of those conversations was to pass the salad tongs.

Still, the point is, he’s barely seen his own guys since he got in last Friday, let alone anybody who doesn’t live with him. Thus, when he walks into Theories of Empire that Tuesday, hastily printed out copies of Locke still warm from the library printers in his hand, it understandably takes him a few to realize that the blonde guy towards the back is actually Jack fucking Johnson.

“Hey!” Sid says, half startled, half excited, dodging some tiny sophomore to slide into the seat next to Jack’s. “What the fuck, Jack, when did you get back?”

“Hey yourself,” Jack replies, turning and grinning at Sid. “I only flew into Michigan like a week ago, so you haven’t missed much.”

“Jesus. And you’re over in Sig, right?”

“Just moved back in. I’m splitting with Bob, you know?”

“Shit, yeah. That sounds good,” Sid says, kicking his bag under the table and situating himself for three hours of class.

“So,” Jack says, grinning at Sid. “I didn’t realize you were taking this course.”

“Oh, yeah,” Sid says, sliding out of his jacket and pulling out a notebook and pencil. “Figured it’d be a fun, you know, a good change of pace.”

“A political theory class? You? You don’t strike me as the type,” Jack replies, and Sid laughs.

“Well, apparently it’ll help with, you know, applications and stuff. Can’t just have history classes on my transcript,” Sid answers.

“Well,” Jack says, leaning in a little bit, close enough that the sleeve of his sweater brushes Sid’s elbow. “I’m glad I get another class with you. I feel like I never even see you anymore.”

“Yeah,” Sid starts, but then the professor walks in, setting down her coffee with a heavy thud.

“So!” she says, pushing up her glasses and folding her hands across the table, “Welcome to Theories of Empire,” and there’s no more talking after that.

Three hours later, after Sid shuffles all of his things together and wonders what the fuck he’s gotten into, he looks up from packing up his backpack to find Jack waiting for him, buttoning up his coat and smiling. “Mind walking back with me?” Jack asks, and Sid smiles up at him.

“Why’d I do that?” he asks. “Do I even know you?”

“Don’t be a shit,” Jack says, but he’s laughing.

“Fine,” Sid says, grinning himself, “I guess I can walk back with you -- though I don’t get why you need a buddy. You afraid of the dark now?”

“Fuck off,” Jack replies easily, leading Sid out of the classroom. “Maybe I just want to catch up with you, yeah?”

“Oh,” Sid says, unable to help smiling to himself.

It’s fucking freezing outside, of course, and more snow must have fallen during class, because it’s almost a foot high as they trudge their way towards Greek Row. Sid balls up his hands in his coat pockets, trying his hardest to retain some body heat and wishing he’d remembered a scarf. “So,” he asks, once they’ve started the long trek across the green, “how was study abroad?”

“Oh, you know,” Jack says, shoving his hands in his coat pockets as they trudge back towards Greek Row, “Amazing, but -- you probably don’t want to hear about it.”

“Tell me anyways,” Sid says, bumping Jack with an elbow. “Where even were you?”

“Edinburgh, remember?” Jack replies. “Not exactly the good ol’ U S of fucking A --”

“Sure,” Sid interrupts, trying to keep up a straight face.

“But it was pretty great. Really cool,” Jack says, cheeks red and puffed out from the January cold. “The history there is intense -- you would’ve liked it. Lots of old books you could go read. We’d never get you out of the library.”

“Fuck off,” Sid says, but he’s pretty bad at keeping up a scowl, and Jack knows it.

“But seriously,” he says, smiling at Sid sidelong, “I think you would’ve liked it. It was just -- you know. A chance to get out of here, do something different, you know? A lot less pressure too.”

“Sounds nice,” Sid says, unwillingly thinking of the workload for this semester and how unprepared he is for it. “So you had a good time then?”

“For sure,” Jack agrees, reaching out to hit the crosswalk button before returning his hands to his pockets. “I have some pretty great pictures too -- remind me to show you sometime, yeah?”

“No, yeah, I definitely want to see them,” Sid replies as they cross the street, stepping carefully to avoid slick patches of ice and make it to Greek Row unscathed.

Once they’re across the street, Sid stops and turns. “So,” he says, hunched a little with how fucking cold it is, “this is where I leave you.”

“You fucking Phi,” Jack says, grinning hugely at Sid. “You’re president now, right? Never saw that one coming.”

“Shut the fuck up, asshole,” Sid says on a laugh. “Anyways, I’ll see you later, right?”

“For sure,” Jack agrees.

“Okay,” Sid says, turning on his heel to walk down the street. “Bye, jerk!”

“Bye, Squid!” Jack shouts back.

Sid throws his arm up in a wave and glances over his shoulder. Halfway down the block, Jack’s waving back.

-

Sid always feels kind of bad when I-week starts -- partially because he remembers his days of sleeping on the basement floor, which was pretty shit, and partially because Duper is a fucking menace.

Still, the faces of the freshmen when Duper wakes them up with a boombox blasting _Wiggle_ at six in the fucking morning is, Sid must admit, pretty fucking great. Bort’s already awake and juggling a million different coffees -- Sid thinks Tanger put him on coffee run duty for the week -- but everyone else looks like ass.

Plus, Olli’s unimpressed face, plus the hair sticking straight up, is possibly the best facial expression Sid’s ever seen.

“Good morning pledgelings,” Duper says, beaming down at the freshmen-shaped sleeping bag lumps. “Time to get up and get started!”

“You want to kill us,” Beau says from his sleeping bag cocoon, blinking blearily up at Duper and rubbing his eyes. “You want me to die.”

“It’s only six in the morning, Sunshine,” Duper replies, sipping the coffee Robert brought them all from Starbucks like a good pledge and grinning in a way that’s slightly worrying. “Nothing like spring cleaning at six in the morning to really make you feel refreshed, you know? We’ll all start the day by turning over a new leaf!”

“It’s not even _spring_ ,” Brandon mutters. “It’s January.”

“Close enough,” Duper says, smiling in a way that makes Sid flash back to his own I-week and feel the slightest twinge of pity for the pledges.

Not too much, of course. But a little.

“Hey,” someone says, and Sid turns from where he’s standing in the basement to find Geno, looking even worse than Beau and the rest of pledges. “What Duper do to pledges?”

“We’ll start with the basement bathrooms!” Duper says, sounding far too cheerful for six in the morning, and the pledges all groan.

“Oh,” Geno says, half-yawning. “Harsh.”

Silently, Sid hands him his Starbucks order, and Geno smiles at him, sleepily grateful. For a second, it makes Sid think everything’s fine -- or, well. close enough to fine -- and he smiles back.

Then Geno freezes, blinking hard, and the moment is lost.

“Hey!” Sid hears, and he turns to find Duper gesturing him over. “You gonna help me maintain some fucking quality control over here?”

“Nah,” Sid says through his yawns, “you guys got it handled.”

“But we even got you coffee!” Tanger shouts, and then amends, “or, well, Bort did, but close enough.”

“What about you, Geno?” Marcel asks from where he’s handing out scrub brushes. “Put a little fear of the Bully into them?”

“Too early,” Geno says, yawning widely before taking a sip of his hellaciously sweet coffee.

“G, are you complaining? As I seem to recall, you made Sid do half your I-week shit for you while you drank your weight in PBR,” Duper hollers. “This is nothing.”

Geno smiles, but it looks -- weird, almost sickly. “Still too early,” he says, not looking at Sid the whole time. “Think I hang back.”

“Suit yourself,” Duper says, crossing his arms and staring down the line of sleep-rumpled and grumpy pledges. “Now, kiddos, who wants shower duty?”

“Shower cleaning?” Simon repeats, wrinkling his nose.

Duper, of course, wheels around to point at him. “Looks like it’s you, buddy! Time to get to scrubbing.”

Simon scowls, but takes the Lysol and scrubber from Glasser and slowly trudges off to the bathrooms while the other pledges snicker.

“Oh, don’t laugh,” Duper says, and instantly all the pledges stop. “I still haven’t picked who gets toilet duty.”

The silence is palpable, and Duper laughs. “That’s what I thought.”

-

That Tuesday night, Sid finds himself standing with some of the older guys in the backyard, watching Duper pace in front of the pledges as the sky goes dark winter-early. Everyone’s shivering with the goddamn windchill, and Sid hangs near the back, shivering and wishing he didn’t have to go to evening class.

“So,” Duper says, standing in front of the pledges like a drill sergeant, “as a part of initiation, you’ll be pranking Lambda house.”

“Lambda?” Sunny asks, raising his hand like he’s in elementary school. “Isn’t that the one with the guy whose wrist Sid broke?”

“I did not fucking break his wrist,” Sid sighs, because he fucking didn’t. Just because he didn’t tell fucking Giroux about one goddamn broken step doesn’t mean he like, pushed him down and made him fall wrong. “He just insists on lying about it.”

“Don’t reveal your secrets, Sid, it ruins the mystery,” Duper tells him before turning back to the pledges. “Anyways, as I was saying --”

Duper keeps going, but Sid tunes out, double checking the time on his phone before sliding it back into his pocket -- he really doesn’t want to be late to his empire class, especially since he has no fucking clue what Edmund Burke was talking about with all the French Revolution shit, not to mention the ten thousand letters on the American colonies or what the fuck ever. Still, he has ten minutes to spare, so he shoves his hands in his jacket pockets and sticks his nose in his scarf, boots crunching in the snow that’s slowly turning slushy and gross. As he shifts from foot to foot, Flower shoots him a look, but Sid just shrugs and ignores him.

“Hey,” someone says softly, and both Sid and Flower glance back to find Geno, bundled up and red-cheeked thanks to the cold. “What Duper make pledges do?” He directs the question over to Flower, nodding at him while crossing his arms and sticking his hands under his armpits, because Geno’s a big goddamn baby about the cold for somebody from fucking Siberia. Honestly, Sid doesn’t get why he isn’t wearing more layers, but he guesses it’s not really his business, since Geno doesn’t even want to ask him a question.

Whatever. It’s fine. They’re both adults or whatever.

Flower, of course, stares straight at Sid when he’s answering. “I think he’s gonna make them TP Lambda,” he says, all the while giving Sid what’s probably supposed to be a significant look.

Sid turns back towards the pledges and ignores him in favor of tuning back into Duper’s spiel.

“-- so to protect Phi’s honor, and also because seriously, fuck those guys,” Duper finishes, holding out his arms in what’s probably supposed to be a dramatic gesture. Judging by the look on Olli’s face, it isn’t exactly working. 

“So, uh,” Tishy says, looking like a lump of flannel rather than a human being, “what exactly are we doing, then?”

Sid must make an involuntary noise or something, because Duper turns to look at him with a grin. “Oh captain, my captain!” he says, beaming, “you wanna start us off tonight? You can come show the babies how it’s done. We thought about using Nealer, but -- well. We don’t want them learning bad habits.”

“Hey!” Nealer shouts from somewhere in the back.

“I can’t. I have class, like, now,” Sid says with a wince, and Duper sighs.

“Lame, Sid.”

“What?” Sid walks backwards towards the house, throwing up his hands. “It’s not like I can blow off my seminar. It only happens like once a week.”

“Lame!” Duper shouts back at him, but thankfully he turns back to the pledges, even as Tanger and Joey V bring out what looks suspiciously like a shitton of toilet paper. It’s probably good he’s leaving now -- it means he at least has some plausible deniability going for him.

Flower waves goodbye, but Geno doesn’t even turn around -- but whatever. Sid’s not gonna dwell on it. If G isn’t going to talk to him, well. They don’t have to talk.

The walk over to campus isn’t quite as bad as standing around in the backyard, but it’s still pretty fucking cold, and by the time Sid makes it to the classroom, he feels like he’ll never be warm again. As he dumps his stuff on the floor next to Jack’s backpack, he sighs, rubbing his hands together and blowing on them.

Jack looks up and raises an eyebrow at him. “I thought you didn’t feel the cold, you Canadian,” he says.

Sid rolls his eyes and sits down in his chair. “There’s windchill. I’m allowed,” he counters, shaking out his hands before unzipping his coat.

Jack nods, and then taps the book in front of him. “How’s the reading going?” he asks, grinning at Sid.

Sid just looks at him.

Jack laughs at him. “Thought so. Told you this class is a little more theoretical.”

With a groan, Sid cracks open his copy of _The Portable Edmund Burke_ and stabs at the tiny, tiny font. “What the fuck was this guy’s deal?” he asks, scowling at _Reflections on the Revolution in France_. “Like, I do not need to know about his massive boner for Marie Antoinette. No one needs to know.”

“I mean, it’s not really his massive boner,” Jack replies earnestly. “She’s a stand-in for the entire monarchy and nobility and shit, you know? He talks about her like that so that all the English nobles will feel bad and keep up their own aristocracy, not because he like, liked her inappropriately.”

“I call bullshit,” Sid mutters, pulling out his notebook and moving his mug of coffee away from Jack, who had broken three their freshman year before Sid had learned better. “It’s definitely about his boner.”

“Just so long as you don’t say that to Professor Richards,” Jack whispers back, nudging him with an elbow as the professor in question walks in, setting down her stack of notes and textbooks and taking a long swig of coffee.

“You guys ready for this?” she asks the class, and Sid winces.

Two and a half hours later, Sid feels like his brain is completely fried.

“Doing okay?” Jack asks, socking Sid in the shoulder.

“Ugh,” Sid groans, rubbing his forehead before slowly gathering his stuff. “Half the time I think I get it, but the other half -- you guys just talk so much political theory, you know?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Jack says, grinning slightly as he stands up. “I mean, it is in the name of the class.”

“No, yeah, I know that,” Sid replies, standing up and stretching his arms above his head. “I just -- there’s a lot of shit you guys know that I don’t. It’d be easier if I could just like, talk it out first, so I know what’s important.”

“Well,” Jack says slowly, “do you want to come over the day before class? That way we can just look over the text together so you know what the main points are.”

Sid blinks in the middle of zipping up his jacket. “Really?” he asks, staring at Jack. “You’d do that?”

“Yeah, for sure,” Jack says, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. “Seriously, come over Monday night.”

“Oh,” Sid says, nodding slowly and smiling. “Okay.”

-

Monday night Sid’s about to head over to Sig, tossing his books in his backpack and hunting around his room for his jacket, when Geno looks up from his Microbiology textbook. “Where you going?”

Sid blinks, and then shrugs. “Over to Jack’s,” he says, turning back towards his closet and frowning -- he swore he left his jacket on one of the hooks, but now of course he can’t fucking find it. “He’s going to help me with this class we’re in.”

“Jack’s?” Geno asks.

Sid glances over his shoulder to find Geno frowning. The sight sends a sudden spike of anger coiling in his stomach -- because of course Geno chooses now to fucking talk to him, instead of two goddamn weeks ago.

“Yeah, Jack’s,” he snaps back, abandoning the search for his jacket and grabbing his backpack. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No problem,” Geno replies, even though the way he says it makes it sound like he does.

Well, fuck him. Geno doesn’t get to judge who Sid hangs out with, or what he does. “Fine,” he finally replies, heading for the door. “Don’t wait up for me.”

If Geno says anything back, Sid doesn’t hear him.

The walk over to Sig is cold, leaving Sid to shiver in his sweatshirt and wish it would fucking warm up already. Jack’s waiting for him by the door, practically shoving Sid inside so they don’t get snow in.

“Come on, upstairs,” he says, and Sid follows him up, waving at Sergei and Nick as they watch something on one of the beat up couches. “Where the fuck is your coat?”

“It’s not that bad out, and it’s a short walk,” Sid protests.

Jack shoots him an unimpressed look over his shoulder. “Three years and you’d think I’d be used to how much of a dumbass you can be,” he says, and Sid scowls at his back.

“Not a dumbass,” he replies.

Jack just laughs. “You’ve always been a dumbass,” he says. “It’s okay, though. I still like you.”

“Thanks,” Sid says, scowling. “Now you got a sweatshirt for me to borrow or what?”

“So demanding,” Jack teases, but as they walk into his room, he obligingly tosses Sid a sweatshirt with the St. Andrew’s logo. “There you go.”

“Thanks,” Sid replies, pulling it on over his head and burrowing in the collar. It’s large on him, the shoulders slipping down and the sleeves folding over his hands. “Jesus, did you grow more while you were abroad?”

“Nah, you’re just short,” Jack replies as he picks the books up off his bed and tosses them on the floor. “You good if we work over here?”

“Wherever’s fine,” Sid replies, dropping off his backpack on the floor and settling in on one end of the bed. 

They spend about an hour just going through Toqueville, Sid occasionally asking questions and Jack explaining as best he can. When Jack talks, he waves his hands around, trying to explain something about civilizations and contact by gesturing his hands, and at one point he accidentally elbows Sid in the stomach.

“Really?” Sid asks, elbowing Jack right back even as he laughs -- or, okay, giggles. “You gotta contain yourself. You’re gonna give me a black eye.”

“Wouldn’t want to mess up that pretty face,” Jack agrees, laughing right back as Sid scowls.

“I’ll show you pretty,” he chirps back, ignoring the way Jack keeps laughing in favor of trying to get him into a headlock.

The subsequent wrestling session ends when Sid accidentally kicks over some of the shit on Jack’s desk, and they end up sitting up again, hair sticking up and faces red. Sid flexes out his fingers even as he staves off another attack of giggles, flopping back against Jack’s bed and staring up at the ceiling.

“Kind of reminds you of freshman year, yeah?” Jack says, lying down next to Sid, folding his hands over his stomach.

“Yeah,” Sid replies, turning his head and watching Jack’s face out of the corner of his eye, and thinks about the two of them in their dorm room, laughing and watching too much Comedy Central. He thinks about them making out in Jack’s bed on top of his plaid comforter, laughing hysterically thanks to too many beergaritas from some rush thing.

“Do you ever think about the other part of freshman year?” Sid asks.

“What,” Jack says, looking over at Sid and smiling, “you want to revisit it or something? Throwback Thursday? Well, it’s Monday, I guess, but. Same difference.”

Sid watches him lick his lips. “Could, if you wanted,” he offers.

Jack’s smile is slow, somewhere between a smirk and a grin. “And if I do want?”

Sid smiles back at him. “All you have to do is ask,” he replies.

“Well,” Jack says, rolling over and propping himself up on his elbows, hovering over Sid, close enough that Sid can feel how warm he is without him even touching Sid, “consider this me asking.”

When Jack kisses him, it’s easy and familiar, like riding a bike. Jack still remembers all the things Sid likes, the way he likes his lips bitten and where Jack should put his hands, and Sid knows to press his thumb at the hinge of Jack’s jaw, to lick into his mouth sloppy and enthusiastic. Closing his eyes takes him right back to a dozen afternoons spent just like this, Jack kissing him easy and slow and careful, laughing a little into his mouth.

After a while, Sid pulls back for air, watching Jack lazily blink his eyes open and smile. “Still know how to kiss you?” he asks.

“You’re okay,” Sid replies, but he can’t hold back his laughter, even as Jack pulls a face.

“Fuck you I’m okay, I’m great,” Jack replies, reaching up to swat at the back of Sid’s head. “Asshole.”

“Stop bitching and get back to making out with me, dumbass,” Sid tells him, earning himself an eyeroll.

“So demanding,” Jack replies, even as he shoves Sid around on the bed.

“I know what I like,” Sid says, shrugging as much as he can with Jack’s weight heavy on top of him, and Jack laughs.

“That’s for sure,” he says, and then he ducks down to kiss Sid again, hard and thorough.

When Sid closes his eyes, it’s too easy to think of Geno’s back was more wiry, how his thighs were less large, and he screws up his nose, because that -- that’s not what he should be doing. That’s not fair.

With a wet noise, Jack pulls back. “You okay?” he asks, and Sid -- Sid needs to get his shit together. This isn’t December, and this isn’t Geno. This is Jack, and this time, he knows exactly what will happen next.

“Fine,” he replies, “except for the part where you’re not getting me off.”

Jack laughs. “Aye aye,” he says, and then he’s attacking Sid’s fly, and Sid’s not thinking about anything other than being right here, right now.

-

The weekend rolls around, and they decide as a frat to keep things small, just a lot of beer and shitty junk food and five different game consoles set up so everyone can play Mario Kart and trash talk each other at the same time. Sid settles on one of the couches between Tanger and Juice, who seem set on beating the shit out of each other, metaphorically speaking.

“You fucker,” Tanger curses, leaning into Sid like it will help his car drift, which it definitely doesn’t. “What the fuck was that blue shell for?”

“I had it, so I use,” Juice says serenely. And then pushes his way into Sid’s space to round another turn.

“You know, leaning like that doesn’t actually help you steer,” Sid says, pushing Juice back even as he elbows Tanger aside. Both of them ignore him.

“How’s the race going?” Flower asks, showing up behind the couch. He got relegated to scorekeeper after Julie and Caro collectively kicked his and Duper’s asses at Double Dash, and has decided that it means giving absolutely everyone shit about their driving skills, or lack thereof.

There’s a pause, but neither Tanger or Juice say anything, too busy focusing on trying to avoid the cows. “Tanger’s still winning,” Sid adds, once it’s clear neither of them are going to contribute. “It’s been pretty close though.”

“Excellent,” Flower replies, leaning his elbows on the back of the couch and watching Tanger and Juice battle it out. “Well, Paulie and Nealer fucked off somewhere so Double Dash is currently recruiting, if anyone wants to play that.” He flicks Sid in the ear with a finger and adds, loudly, “I’m sure you’re better than Duper.”

“Hey!” Duper calls out. “Who was the one who fucked up the banana strategy?”

“You fucked that up yourself,” Flower chirps back, right before leaning down again. “Seriously though, help me out. One of the pledges can keep score or whatever.”

Sid sighs, but slowly gets up. “Just a few rounds,” he says as he rounds the couch, earning himself some more of Tanger’s cursing by blocking the screen. “But I’m supposed to go over to Jack’s later, okay?”

“Jack’s?” Flower asks, following Sid over to the Double Dash couch, where Julie and Caro have switched out for Hilary and her dot -- Emily? Amanda? Something like that. “Since when are you hanging over at Sig instead of with us? We’re your _brothers_ , Sid.”

“He’s helping me with one of my classes,” Sid replies, settling down into the couch and taking one of the controllers. “And what, like I can’t hang out with other people? I have friends, you know.”

“I mean, yeah, but we’re your friends,” Flower replies, nudging him with an elbow. “We’re definitely better than some Sig, anyways.”

“Shut up and pick your fucking go kart,” Sid tells him.

In the middle of their third race -- and fuck Rainbow Road, seriously -- Sid’s in the middle of drinking his beer and informing Flower that next time _he_ gets to drive when Flower interrupts him.

“Hey, G!” Flower shouts, and Sid barely manages not to whip his head around in turning to look for Geno. “You wanna join forces with Captain Over-controlling over here? Seriously, help me out. Power has changed him.”

Sid watches Geno shrug and look away. “Maybe play later,” he says, sounding disinterested.

“Seriously?” Flower asks, jostling Sid with one of his elbows as he turns around on the couch. “But you guys could totally kick Hil’s and -- sorry, what’s your name?”

“Amanda,” Hilary’s dot says.

“Amanda’s asses for us. You two are terrifying together.”

Geno frowns, but shakes his head. “Not today,” he says, walking over towards the kitchen.

With a sigh, Flower turns around and faces the screen again. “What is up with you two?” he mutters, grabbing Sid’s beer and chugging some of it like a fucking asshole. “Normally Geno’d be all up on the chance to destroy everyone.”

“Nothing,” Sid says, as neutrally as possible.

Still, Flower frowns. “You sure?” he asks, forehead wrinkling. “I feel like something’s up.”

“No, it -- it’s not a big deal. Just let it go, okay?” Sid turns resolutely back to the screen and gulps down more beer.

Another round later, Sid’s pocket buzzes, and he pulls out his phone to find a text from Jack. _coming over?_

 _Yeah, just a sec_ , Sid types back, and he stands, handing his beer over to Flower. “I’m off,” he says, carefully stepping over Amanda’s legs and getting on the other side of the couch. “See you guys later.”

The look Flower gives him promises an awkward conversation in their future, but Sid steadfastly ignores it. Any thoughts about Geno quickly disappear in the face of how fucking cold it is, and by the time he’s reached Sig, toes cold in his sneakers, he’s resolutely not thinking about him at all.

-

February starts out rocky. All of Sid’s classes feel way harder than they did last semester, and even though he isn’t like Kuni or Brooksie, who are both writing theses and have become increasingly cranky whenever someone cuts into their library time. He barely even has time to call his mom, let alone run a fucking fraternity. 

He spends a fair amount of time over at Sig, hanging out in Jack’s room and alternating between doing homework and hooking up. Some of the other Sigs seem to not really want him there -- Dubinsky in particular -- but Jack must say something to them, because nobody bothers him there. 

Besides, Jack’s room is turning out to be a much better place to spend his time than his own, because whenever he gets home, he’s treated to an awkward silence in his room and, if he runs into Flower, a lot of meaningful glances he doesn’t want to decipher.

“God, this week has been shitty,” he complains three weeks in, staring down his laptop and the blank Word doc before him. “How am I supposed to write a paper about theory? I don’t even fucking understand it.”

“Just compare and contrast,” Jack suggests, nudging him with a foot. “Talk about how Burke and Toqueville are at odds or whatever, or how they’re both racist assholes. Either way you’re good.”

“Ugh,” Sid groans, slumping against the wall and closing his eyes. “And then there’s all the shit in the frat, because we’re hosting Shotgun Wedding pretty soon and I’m afraid Duper’s going to give all the babies heart attacks.” He sighs, and continues, “I just need to get off campus, you know? I just need to -- you know. Not.”

“Dinner?”

Sid blinks, and then opens his eyes to stare at Jack. “What?”

Jack looks back at him. “We could do dinner, or something. Maybe Sunday?”

“I -- okay,” Sid says. “What time? Where?”

“I’ll text you,” Jack says easily, poking his toes into Sid’s thigh. “That way you have something to look forward to, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sid says, smiling at Jack. “Sounds good.”

“Great,” Jack says, and then he turns back to whatever he’s reading.

For about ten minutes Sid manages to at least get a solid start on his paper, writing out his thesis and the topic sentences for his body paragraphs. He gets distracted however when his phone buzzes, showing a text from Duper, and Sid sighs even as he opens it.

_can u talk 2 geno? julie called me abt how he needs 2 talk 2 them abt party shit_

Frowning, Sid texts back, _Just go up and bug him yourself._

 _but he’s scary!!! ~the bully~_ Duper texts back, because Duper’s a fucking moron.

 _Just do it_ , Sid fires back, and sighs, leaning against the wall again.

“What now?” Jack asks, and Sid glances over at him before tossing his phone on the bed.

“All of this shit would be easier if Geno was fucking talking to me,” he mumbles, rubbing his hands over his face.

Through his fingers he can see Jack frowning. “He’s not talking to you?”

“No,” Sid groans, pushing his hair back and looking up at the ceiling. “I -- every time I try to talk to him he just shuts me out, and now I’m not talking back because what’s the point? He just keeps using the fucking silent treatment.”

“And you’re using it right back,” Jack says, and Sid turns his head to look at him. “What are you even fighting about? I thought you guys were close.”

“We’re not fighting,” Sid says quickly.

Jack just looks at him.

“We’re not!” Sid insists, pursing his lips. “We’re just -- something happened, and I -- I don’t know. It might be better if we were fighting, to be honest. At least I’d know what to do.”

“And you haven’t talked to him,” Jack says, and Sid scowls.

“Like I said, there’s no fucking point,” he replies, tipping his head back again and shutting his eyes.

There’s a rustling sound and a couple of thumps, and then Sid can feel Jack’s hand grabbing at his shoulder. “Hey,” Jack says, and Sid cracks his eyes open. “Want to do something else for a while?”

“God, yes,” Sid agrees, letting Jack set his laptop on the desk and already turning to face Jack, getting a hand up and under Jack’s shirt. When Jack kisses him, it’s easy enough to forget about his essay, or his responsibilities, or Geno. Soon enough, Sid’s not thinking about anything at all.

-

Sid almost forgets about his promise to get dinner with Jack, jumping a little when he sees the text asking about where they should eat. _Taqueria okay?_

 _Sounds good_ , Sid texts back, and then he tries to figure out what the hell he should wear for a not-quite date with his not-quite boyfriend. Definitely not-boyfriend, anyways.

In the end, he opts for a slightly nicer sweater under his coat than the ratty thing he was wearing for camping out in the library -- even if they aren’t dating or whatever, he should at least try to look like he knows how to dress himself. Sort of.

Jack meets him outside Phi, waiting on the front sidewalk, hands in his coat pockets. “Hey,” he calls as Sid comes tripping down the front porch, struggling with pulling his hat over his ears, “you ready to go?”

“I was born ready,” Sid says in his best action hero voice, which just makes Jack laugh.

“Sure thing, Squid,” Jack says, earning himself a punch to the gut. “What the fuck, bro!”

“Don’t call me that, dickhead,” Sid says, even as he quickly retrieves his hand and shoves it back in his pocket.

“Whatever,” Jack says, grinning and nudging Sid along. “Come on -- the faster the walk, the faster we eat.”

“More like the faster we get out of the fucking cold,” Sid replies, shuddering and hurrying up that extra half step to keep in time with Jack’s longer legs.

“Is this the temperature that breaks Canada’s finest?” Jack laughs. “I thought you guys were supposed to be impervious to cold.”

“If we went off what you think, we’d also be riding moose,” Sid grumbles. “I can’t believe you asked me that freshman year.”

“I was drunk and shit! It seemed relevant at the time,” Jack protests.

They spend the rest of the walk to the Taqueria bickering over freshman year, Jack insisting that forcing Sid into a Team USA jersey was and continues to be one of the funniest things ever. “You looked so patriotic!” he crows as they finally make it into the restaurant, stomping their boots on the mat and standing in front of the counter. “Like a true American.”

“Fuck being American,” Sid grumbles, wrinkling his nose as he considers his burrito options.

“Well,” Jack says, shrugging, “I guess you were okay as Captain Canada.”

“Don’t even talk to me about that,” Sid sighs. “Geno’s convinced the entire frat to call me Captain.”

“So it’s all Geno’s fault, huh?” Jack asks.

Sid nods vigorously, even as Jack steps up to order his monstrosity of a California burrito. “He fucking started it,” he says. “And then he managed to convince Duper that it would be a _great_ pledge name, and now it’s been three years and all the guys still fucking call me Captain Canada. I’m pretty sure Geno shares the pictures of me in that fucking flag.”

“I forgot about that,” Jack says, grinning at Sid and stepping back so Sid can order. “Any chance I can see them?”

“Fuck no,” Sid says right back. “Not if I have any say in it.”

“I’ll just have to go to the source then,” Jack teases as Sid signs his receipt and picks up his number. “Maybe Geno will show me.”

“He probably will, the fucker,” Sid says, smiling despite himself. “He loves those stupid pictures. Says ‘best captain’ like it makes up for the fact that I practically froze to death.”

“Well,” Jack says, voice sounding a little weird. “Can’t exactly blame him.”

Sid -- doesn’t know how to respond to that. Instead, after a few awkward seconds, he asks about Jack’s classes.

Talking about school carries them through their burritos and chips, Sid complaining about papers and Jack making fun of all of his professors. Jack’s impression of one of his theory profs almost makes Sid snort salsa out of his nose. It’s nice, and easy, and funny -- but there’s still a weird tension between them, one that Sid doesn’t know how to fix. Every time he brings up a story from the house or one of their parties Jack just looks slightly pinched, like he’s holding back from saying something -- but it never happens.

Sid would ask, but he doesn’t know how, and so instead he starts talking about _Parks and Rec_ until Jack stops looking so -- he doesn’t know. Whatever it is, though, he doesn’t want Jack to look like that.

 _Parks and Rec_ gets them through the rest of dinner, and they’re still talking about Ben and Leslie when they head out of Taqueria and towards Greek Row. Still, after a couple blocks or so, Sid realizes he’s just monologuing about how great they are, and he turns to look at Jack, chewing his lip.

“Um,” he says, waiting until Jack looks at him, “are you -- is something up? Like, bothering you or whatever?”

For a second, Jack just doesn’t say anything. But then, after a long moment, he heaves a huge sigh, shoving his hands further in his pockets.

“I don’t think we should do this anymore.”

Sid stops dead and stares at Jack. “What?” he asks, because -- what?

When Jack looks at him, it’s with a grimace. “I just -- I think we need to stop.”

Sid inhales sharply. “Okay,” he says slowly, rocking back on his heels as he looks at Jack. “Okay,” he repeats, and then, “I -- why? Why now?”

“Look, Sid, it’s been fun, but,” Jack shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “I mean. Neither of us are serious about this --”

“Were we ever?” Sid asks, and Jack laughs a little, glancing away.

“Well, no, but -- look. It’s easy to hook up with you and all if you’re single and shit, but -- Sid. Even I’m not self-delusional enough to keep kissing someone who wishes I was somebody else.”

Sid sucks in a breath, balling up his fists in his coat pockets. “I don’t think that,” he replies. “I don’t, Jack.”

“Oh, I know you don’t mean to, but -- it isn’t fair to either of us to keep going, really. Not even your ass can make it worth it.” Jack’s laughter is sharp and hollow, and it makes something ache in Sid’s chest because he doesn’t know how to fix it. “It’s fun and all, but --”

“Jack,” Sid interrupts, voice cracking slightly, but -- fuck. “I don’t -- I didn’t mean to hurt you, or anything.”

Jack half-smiles at him. “I know, Sid, don’t worry. It’s just -- I can’t be your stand-in for what you really want.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “It’s shit for you, and it’s shit for me, and -- I can’t.”

“I --” Sid starts, but then he slumps, all the breath going out of his lungs in a rush. “Okay. That’s -- okay.” He pauses, and then looks up at Jack, because it would be shit to not at least look him in eye. “Friends still?”

Jack sighs too, shifting his weight from foot to foot. When he nods, it’s slow. “Maybe -- I mean. We can still hang out and stuff. I just -- I’m going to need time.”

“That’s fine,” Sid says, because. Well. He deserves it. “I don’t -- you really are my friend, Jack. You have to know that.”

“I do,” Jack says, and he smiles again, just a little. “I know. It’ll just be a little while.”

“Okay,” Sid says, because there’s not much else to say. “Okay.”

He turns to leave, only for Jack to grab his elbow. “What?” Sid asks.

“Listen,” Jack says, face serious. “I just think you should talk to Geno.”

“Geno?” Sid asks, trying not to give anything away, but his voice is cracking, and fuck. Fuck.

Jack just gives him an even look, like during freshman year when Sid would lie about his crush on Anna down the hall. “You know, even though you aren’t talking or anything -- and I don’t know what that’s about, you know, that’s your own business, but -- whenever you see him, you fucking light up.”

Sid shoves his hands in his pockets and looks away. 

“Seriously, Sid,” Jack says, and his voice -- it’s not kind, exactly, but Jack sounds like he gets it, somehow. “I just -- it’s not fair to either of you, or anyone else.” He half laughs, and continues, “If nothing else, you’ll have tried.”

“I --” Sid starts, but he can’t figure out what to say next, how to explain that talking to Geno is fucking impossible and can’t -- won’t -- happen. Everything feels like a big fucking mess, a mess he doesn’t know how to fix at all. 

He finally settles for saying, again, “I’m sorry, Jack.”

Jack half smiles at him, giving him a tiny shrug. “I know. I just --” He sighs, and says, “I’ll see you around, yeah?”

“I -- yeah,” Sid says.

Jack turns to head towards Sig, but as he goes he looks back over his shoulder, giving Sid a wave. “Bye,” he calls, even as his shoes crunch in the snow, making his way back to Sig.

“Bye,” Sid says, curling his hands into fists inside his coat pockets.

The walk to Phi is cold and lonely, and Sid trudges inside to find the house mostly silent, only a few stragglers watching TV in the main lounge. He tries to avoid anyone who might try and talk to him, instead heading straight upstairs to just -- he doesn’t know. Go to sleep, probably.

When he makes it into their room, Geno’s still up, sitting in his bed doing something on his phone. He glances over at Sid as Sid walks in, and Sid watches as he opens his mouth -- but he doesn’t say anything, just looks back down at Candy Crush or Two Dots or whatever stupid game he’s playing.

For a second, as he’s stripping down and climbing into bed, Sid thinks about what Jack said, that he should just talk to Geno. It even seems appealing -- but it’ll probably just end in Sid losing Geno. Again.

So instead, Sid just rolls over, shoves his nose into his pillow, and wills himself to sleep. 

-

Sid doesn’t want to go to Shotgun Wedding.

“I’m good,” he says absently, staring at the very important episode of _Parks and Rec_ that he just started. Andy and April are getting for real married, which is obviously far more important than fake marrying someone from Alpha.

“Dude,” Nealer says, sounding exasperated, “you can’t be ‘good.’ You’re kind of the prez, you know? You sort of have to show the fuck up to this one.”

“Or,” Sid counters, looking up from his laptop to scowl at Nealer, “I could stay up here, and one of the other officers could step the fuck up and do it instead.”

Nealer frowns at him, crossing his arms and leaning in the doorframe of his and Geno’s room. “Dude, who the fuck got your panties in such a fucking twist? It’s Shotgun Wedding, bro. Kind of a big deal. You gonna leave Julie at the altar?”

“She’ll be fine. She has Caro,” Sid replies, already turning back to Netflix.

For a few blissful seconds, Sid thinks that maybe, just maybe, Nealer actually listened to him and decided to leave him the fuck alone.

He’s wrong, of course, but it was a nice ten seconds.

“You can watch April and Andy later, man. We gotta get you dressed.” Nealer slams Sid’s laptop shut, like a fucking dick, and grabs it to set it down on his desk. “No way are we sending you down there to get hitched dressed like that.”

“Jesus fuck, Nealer,” Sid squawks back, reaching over to punch Nealer hard in the bicep. “Who even put you up to this?”

“Duper and Flower didn’t want to deal with you when you were moping like your dog died, quote unquote, and Paulie just laughed in my face, so. Tag, I’m it.” Nealer walks over to Sid’s dresser and starts pulling open drawers, rifling through Sid’s t-shirts even as Sid gapes at him. “How the fuck do you not own any plaid?”

“Sorry I don’t consider dressing like a lumberjack a positive,” Sid bitches back, standing up and barely resisting the urge to shove Nealer. 

“Whatever, bro. I guess we’ll just go steal one of Paulie’s flannels, he won’t give a shit.” 

With that, Nealer hauls Sid out of the room, ignoring his protests and dragging him down the hall to Paulie’s room. Once they’re there, Nealer hooks an arm around Sid’s neck and bangs on the door.

“Paulie!” he hollers, voice echoing in the hall. “Paulie, open up, we need flannel!”

Sid sighs, and hates his life.

-

“So, with the power vested -- invested? -- in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife,” Duper declares solemnly. His priest costume looks super shiny from where they got it two years ago at Goodwill, and he’s smiling at Sid like a fucking asshole. Sid misses that golden time when he was in the kitchen doing shots of Bacardi all of half an hour ago. “You may kiss the bride.”

“Yeah, Chuey!” one of the Alphas yells. Sid thinks it might be Knighter. “Kiss the fuck out of him!”

Sid glances down to find Julie grinning at him, veil lopsided and cheeks pink from the shots before the Bacardi. “Ready for this?”

Sid rolls his eyes -- he’s pretty sure Julie said the exact same thing last year, when the guys made him do it despite him only being veep -- but then he’s not really thinking because aw fuck, Julie’s dipping him. Again.

An awkward ten seconds later, Sid is upright and Julie’s clapping him on the shoulder. “Solid showing,” she says, pressing a much less awful kiss to his cheek. “Glad I married you.”

“Pretty sure I should be saying that,” Sid manages, and Julie reaches up and -- yep, she’s patting him on the head now.

“You’re adorable, Crosby,” she says, “also, where the fuck is the Malibu?”

“Kitchen,” Sid tells her, and she grins at him.

“See you later, hubby,” she says, giving him another pat on the head, and then she’s off.

“Runaway bride!” Flower calls out, adjusting his fucking cowboy hat, which, that isn’t even part of the theme.

Fortunately, Julie leaving to find coconut rum means that Sid finally, _finally_ has permission to ditch the makeshift church and go find some real alcohol. Almost as soon as he turns around, he runs into Juice, who grins and claps him on the back.

“Congrats,” Juice tells him, pressing a glass full of cheap sparkling wine into his hand. “You are now a married man. How does it feel?”

Sid squints at him, but Juice just smiles back benignly. “I have no idea whether you’re joking or not,” he says finally, accepting the glass of wine and taking a swig.

Juice just raises his eyebrows. “Good,” he says, taking a drink of his own. “Drink up, Captain.”

Sid rolls his eyes at the nickname but drinks anyway.

“Good,” Juice says again, slapping him on the back again and then going off -- somewhere. It’s pretty easy to lose track when surrounded by Alphas in outfits that clearly came from Goodwill about two hours ago. Sid can even see the tags on Hilary’s bright pink dress, poking out as she chats with Amanda and waves her arms around.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Duper says from somewhere behind Sid, grabbing him by elbow and spinning him. “Now is the time for drinking, young man! You’re married and shit!”

“But I did drink! I drank!” Sid protests, even as Duper drags him over towards the bar, where Tanger is putting together shots that scream bad decisions, right next to -- fuck, that’s definitely jungle juice.

“Not enough,” Duper says cheerfully, passing a cup of mystery liquid over to Sid and beaming. “Now come on, you going to celebrate your reception in style or what?”

Sid sighs, but obligingly takes a swig.

Many swigs later, the room has gotten a lot darker, there’s some sort of weird 80s mashup playing that’s straight off Marcel’s iPod, and Julie and Caro are definitely making out in the corner. Sid turns to give them some space and almost immediately runs into Brandon, who steadies him and saves his cup of alcoholic wonders from spilling, because he is an awesome pledge like that.

“Thanks!” Sid says brightly, and Brandon nods, squinting at something just over Sid’s shoulder.

“Dude, Caro’s totally macking on your wife.” Brandon says, and Sid just claps him on the shoulder. Well, on the chin, but he was aiming for the shoulder.

“Caro can have her. She’ll take much better care of Julie,” he replies, nodding firmly. “Julie wants Caro to kiss her, not me. ‘m not good for kissing Julie.”

“That’s fair,” Brandon says, laughing a little. “Need a refill?”

“That’s okay,” Sid tells him, patting him awkwardly on the ear. “I can find something myself. You don’t have to.”

“Sure?” Brandon reaches out to take Sid’s cup, only for Sid to jerk it away.

“Totally good. Promise,” Sid tells him, draining the last bit of juice and nodding. It makes the room a little spinny, but whatever. “In fact, I think I’m gonna go and do that. The drink getting.”

“Good luck,” Brandon says to Sid’s back, and Sid tosses a sloppy salute before turning to head towards the kitchen.

Actually making it to the kitchen takes a lot of effort, but once he gets there he finds more drinks, which is good, and Tanger making out with someone, which is awkward. Trying to step as quietly as possible around them, Sid makes himself another cup of drink, wincing when some of it slops over the side and lands on the counter. He still doesn’t like how messy the frat gets, even though it’s practically a given -- he always feels kind of bad about the sticky counters and hideous amount of trash.

Still, no point in worrying right now. Instead, Sid grabs his drink and slips out, heading down the hall the long way so he has a little time to not be elbowed by pledges and the baby Alphas. He doesn’t think Tanger even noticed he was there.

Once he makes it back to the main room, true to form he’s almost immediately swallowed up by the party. Sid has to sidestep a lot of groups getting their freak on, and he’s about to decide if it’s too cold to escape outside for a bit, when he spots Geno over by the wall, which, Sid didn’t even think he was coming. Maybe he should go visit him instead. Geno’s definitely better than being cold.

“Geno!” Sid shouts, reaching out to give him a high five and stumbling instead. He grabs at Geno’s shoulder to steady himself, ending up a lot closer than he meant to get. “Hey, G, Geno --”

“Sid,” Geno says, grabbing at his elbows and steadying him, so Sid’s all pressed up against his chest, which is nice and warm and broad and nice. “Think you have too much. Need Gatorade.”

Sid frowns. He doesn’t _want_ Gatorade. “No,” he says, and it sounds really funny, so he repeats it with a giggle. “No!”

At that, Geno shakes his head, pulling Sid out of the way of some of the baby Alphas who still knock into him as they pass. “Really think you need water,” he says, sounding way too serious for Shotgun Wedding.

Sid shakes his head back at him, the motion making him feel all dizzy. “Don’t.”

Geno sighs, sliding his shoulders under Sid’s arm and pulling him closer, so Sid’s leaning on him, which is nice because Geno is a really great person to lean on. “Why you so drunk?” he asks, sounding plaintive, which is dumb.

“So I could get _married_ ,” Sid tells him, reaching over to pat him on the forehead and hitting Geno’s nose instead. “Duh.” He waggles the fake ring at Geno, but then remembers that he lost Julie to Caro -- so he’s all alone again. “But Julie has somebody else. _Everybody_ has somebody else.”

“Have Jack,” Geno replies, sounding sad, which is -- Geno shouldn’t sound sad. He just shouldn’t. 

“No,” Sid tells him, shaking his head again, which just makes the room spin even more. “No, no,” he repeats, because he doesn’t have Jack anymore.

Geno stiffens right under Sid’s arm, and when Sid peers up at him, he finds Geno frowning, forehead wrinkled. “No? But -- you like Jack.”

“Not _enough_ ,” Sid tells him, because yes, he does like Jack. He likes Jack a lot, but he doesn’t like Jack how you’re supposed to like someone you make out with and fuck sometimes. “It’s okay, though because Jack should have someone who wants him a lot, you know? Like, a lot a lot.”

“A lot a lot,” Geno repeats, sounding dumb. He’s so dumb sometimes -- not most of the time, because Geno’s actually really smart, but sometimes. “So you not --”

“No,” Sid says, because he’s not. Which sucks. “ ‘m all alone. Want someone, but -- nope. Just alone.”

“Not alone,” Geno says, hand tightening on Sid’s hip, pulling him even closer, which is good because the room is getting spinny again, even when Sid shuts his eyes and breathes in and out through his nose. He might have had too much rum.

“Am,” Sid insists, because he is, and he only just barely manages to blink open his eyes to look up at Geno, because suddenly everything seems really difficult. “I’m so tired, G.”

Geno shifts his grip on Sid, pulling him up a little straighter before heading out of the living room towards the stairs. “Need to put to bed?” he asks, though the way he’s leading Sid along through the crowd makes Sid think that he’s already made the decision for Sid.

It’s okay, though, because Sid does want to go to bed. “Don’t let me sleep with my shoes on,” he mumbles, and he can feel Geno chuckle under his arm.

“Not let,” he replies, guiding Sid past a knot of Alphas, including Julie and Caro, and up the stairs. He doesn’t even walk that fast, so Sid can keep up and walk mostly by himself.

It’s nice. It’s really nice.

“It’s nice,” he says, because Geno should know.

“What nice?” Geno asks. His voice is all low and rumbly, like a car or a plane or something.

Sid doesn’t really know how to explain what’s nice, though -- there’s no way to say “I like that you wait for me” without it sounding really weird. “You,” he says finally, when it’s clear Geno wants an answer. “You’re nice.”

“Of course am nice,” Geno replies, and Sid can tell that he’s joking offended instead of actual offended. “I nicest. Nicer than you.”

“No,” Sid tells him with a laugh, because Sid is _way_ nicer, duh.

Geno just smiles at him, quick and bright, and. It’s nice. Being around Geno is really, really nice.

“‘m glad we’re talking right now,” Sid tells him, because that’s true too. “Don’t like it when we don’t.”

“Don’t talk?” Geno asks.

Sid nods, which maybe wasn’t that smart, because stairs and dizziness are not good. “Don’t like it,” he repeats. “Feels bad. It’s lonely, when I don’t, because talking to you is the best.”

“Oh,” Geno says. When Sid glances up at him, he sees Geno’s mouth slightly open. Sid reaches up to pat it, because Geno should close his mouth, the dumbass.

Then he yawns, because he’s really, _really_ tired.

“Okay,” Geno says under his fingers. His voice sounds super weird, and Sid blinks, taking his hand back. “Okay,” Geno repeats, “time for you to sleep.”

Sid nods. “Yep,” he agrees, even as Geno tugs him closer to their room. “Lots of sleep. I need all the sleep.”

“You do,” Geno agrees, pushing open the door. “Sleep lots, drink Powerade, then not have hangover.”

Sid wrinkles his nose, because ew, Powerade, but then he sees the bed closest to the door and just drops onto it, because now going any farther to sleep isn’t going to happen.

“Sid,” Geno says, poking at him, but Sid grumbles into his pillow, which doesn’t really smell like his pillow -- weird. “ _Sid_.”

“No,” Sid mumbles at him, shoving his face further in the pillows so he doesn’t have to open his eyes or _anything_. “Sleep now.”

He closes his eyes, the quiet of the upstairs and all the drunken tiredness making it easy to drift off. Somebody might be talking to him, but he can’t understand anything they say, all the words flowing over him, so he just screws his eyes shut tighter and falls asleep.

-

Sid wakes up to the sun glaring in his eyes and somebody else’s comforter tucked around him.

In fact, even as he burrows further into the comforter, hiding from the sun and wishing he could just pass out again, the comforter looks weirdly like Geno’s plaid one.

Sid cracks one eye open, the sunlight making everything appear red underneath the blanket, and realizes that it doesn’t just look like Geno’s comforter -- it _is_ his.

Slowly, Sid pushes the comforter back, carefully sitting up. He’s still in his flannel and jeans from last night, but someone helped him out of his shoes, which were left by the door, which isn’t across the room from the bed like it should be, which means --

Oh fuck, he passed out in Geno’s bed.

Sid twists to look around the room, but his bed is still made from earlier, laptop on top of the comforter, which means Geno must not have slept in their room at all last night. Thinking about Geno forced to take the couch just makes Sid feel awful, and he resolves to do something for him.

When his head stops hurting, anyways. 

On the bedside table, Sid’s watter bottle is sitting there, completely full and dripping slightly from the condensation. Sid grabs it and drinks half of it in careful sips, attempting to ward off the weird mixture of aching and nausea that always means a hangover for him. Once he finishes, he carefully swings his feet out from under the comforter, slowly reaching standing up. 

His head still aches, but he doesn’t want to immediately run for the bathroom and puke, so he’ll take it as a win.

Still moving slow, he changes out of his clothes from last night and pulls on some ratty basketball shorts and an old folded sweatshirt left on his desk chair, one either belongs to him or Geno, but he doesn’t really remember which. The point is that somebody washed it and left it for him after Beau spilled a screwdriver on it a week ago, and it currently smells clean and is exactly the right ratio of warm to lightweight that Sid needs right now.

It takes another water break for Sid to even consider heading downstairs, but eventually being hungry beats out being nauseous, and he carefully leaves their room, padding down the hall towards the stairs.

Debris from the party is everywhere, streamers and Solo cups all over the floors and stair railings. There’s a pile of clothes on one of the landings for reasons Sid can’t quite figure out in his hungover state, and when Sid passes it, he sees what looks like someone’s bra, which. Sid thought those were expensive, what the fuck.

Deciding to just not think about it, he carries on.

When he finally reaches the kitchen, it’s to find all the other awake people in the house. Geno and Flower are slowly making their way through the Cinnamon Toast Crunch, silently chewing, and Nealer’s staring down the toaster, which means he’s decided on Pop Tarts instead of convincing Paulie to make him eggs.

Flower’s the first one to see him, waving a little around his spoonful of cereal, cheeks puffing out as he chews. “Morning, sunshine,” he says once he swallows. “Did the wife not stay for the honeymoon?”

Sid rolls his eyes, taking the chair next to him and grabbing the box of cereal. “Considering Julie has Caro, no,” he says back, pouring himself a bowl and looking around for the jug of 1%.

“True, true,” Flower says cheerfully. “No extramarital affairs then?”

If it were possible to roll his eyes harder, Sid would. “No, dickface,” he says, grabbing a spoon from where Flower and Geno had piled them in the middle of the table. “Don’t be an asshole.”

“What? I was your best man. I’m pretty sure I have to ask about that shit, considering how clingy you were all night,” Flower replies. “So, you’re the only one who _didn’t_ get laid after Shotgun Wedding?”

“Please don’t brag about your sex life at the table,” Sid counters, taking a bite of cereal and reveling in the cinnamony crunchy goodness. When he looks up he finds Geno staring at him, but as soon as Sid makes eye contact, he glances away.

“Not even Jack?” Flower asks, and this time he sounds genuinely worried, a little, which is the only reason Sid still likes him, the dick.

Sid just takes another bite, shaking his head and glaring a little. “No, dickhead,” Sid replies once he’s finished chewing, right before jerking his head towards Geno and Nealer. “Did you do this to them too?”

Flower looks like he’s had a revelation, which really isn’t a good sign. “No, but I could,” he says, turning to look at Nealer, who’s extracted his Pop Tarts and is choosing a coffee mug out of the cabinet like he isn’t going to pick the yellow one Paulie brought back from visiting his sister at U of M. “Say, Nealer, any luck for you last night? That groomsman cliche hold true for you?”

Clearly, that was the wrong thing to say, because Nealer just glares at him, slamming the cabinet door shut. “Fuck off,” he says, voice sharp, and then he storms out of the kitchen, breezing past Sid and Geno like they aren’t even there and stomping down the hall.

“The fuck’s with him?” Flower asks after a long second, taking a sip of coffee and grimacing slightly.

“He pouty because Paulie hook up with girl from Alpha last night instead of him,” Geno says. His voice is slow and rough from sleep, and it makes Sid shiver even though he should know better by now. He covers by yawning, hiding his mouth with a hand before scrubbing at his hair.

“That’s a thing? Man, I thought they were just --” Flower makes a wiggly hand gesture. “You know.”

“Think Paulie think so,” Geno replies, taking a sip of his own coffee, almost white from all the milk and sugar he dumps in. “Lazy, though -- think he start that way, but then think different.”

Flower makes a scoffing noise, grabbing the box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and pouring himself a bowl. When he can’t reach the milk, he makes grabby hands at Sid until Sid slides it along the table. “That’s why I can’t do this hook-up shit. Can you fucking imagine? Like, who thinks they can just fuck and not get attached?”

Carefully Sid sneaks a glance at Geno, who’s staring at Flower over his coffee. “Easy to happen,” Geno says finally, voice flat. “If know mean nothing.”

“Well, yeah, I guess,” Flower says, “but like, this wasn’t your standard party hook up, you know? It’s not just a one and done. They’ve been doing this all fucking year.”

Geno shrugs, and Sid can almost feel the way he’s not looking at Sid as much as if he were staring. “Maybe Lazy think it worth it then. Not realize he regret later.”

Sid stares down at his mug of coffee, unwilling to look up and see the expression on Geno’s face.

“Or maybe he’s just an idiot,” Flower counters, yawning a little. “I mean, it is Nealer we’re talking about here. Not exactly the sharpest crayon in the drawer.”

“You’re mixing your metaphors,” Sid says softly, out of habit, and Flower laughs.

“Can always trust on our president to keep my English good,” he says, reaching over to slap Sid on the shoulder. “Say, what are your plans for the day, Sid?”

“Nothing,” Sid says honestly, shrugging. “Finished my one paper, so. Not a lot to do.”

“What, no readings about the historical implications of German people in Portugal during World War II or whatever?” Flower asks.

“Lucky you French major,” Geno says under his breath. “Too stupid for anything else.”

Flower just laughs. “Thank you, bully,” he says, scooping up a spoonful of cereal and chewing obnoxiously. “But seriously, are you doing anything?”

“Why?” Sid asks suspiciously, taking a long sip of coffee.

Flower just grins. “Because I’ve missed you,” he says, popping another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. “Also because I need someone to watch _Say Yes To The Dress_ with me. Vero got me addicted but she’s off doing Theta things.”

“Jesus,” Sid groans, resting his forehead on one of his palms, but finally he sighs and nods. “Fine,” he says, peering over at Flower, “I’ll watch _Say Yes To The Dress_ with you.”

Mouth full of cereal, Flower beams. “Excellent,” he says after visibly swallowing, kicking Sid under the table, and then, a little quieter, “we’ve missed you around, you know.”

Sid swallows, throat suddenly dry. “Yeah, I know,” he says, looking down at his coffee.

Flower taps him with his toes again, and when Sid looks up, he’s smiling a little. When he glances past Flower to Geno, he can see Geno smiling too, just for a second. Geno then looks down at his bowl of cereal, still not ready to make eye contact, but it’s better than before. It’s better.

-

Whenever Sid gets papers back, he always wishes he could get away with not ever looking at his grade. He especially wishes he could get away with it in Theories of Empire, but unfortunately Professor Richards is one of the few professors who actually wants a paper copy of every essay, and as he sits in the classroom, carefully not looking at Jack, he sees the pile of essays in front of her and winces.

“I’ll hand these out at the end of class,” Professor Richards says, tapping the pile in front of her. “If you have any questions, you can talk to me after, okay?”

Sid doesn’t do too badly in discussion -- he is getting better about understanding the theory, even though it would help if he was still hanging out with Jack. As much as hooking up had probably been a bad idea, Jack always managed to make things seem simpler than they looked, and right now Sid wishes they could’ve kept that up. Still, he manages to get in a few good comments, even if he still feels like he’s way behind everyone else in the class.

By the end of the seminar, Sid’s almost forgotten about the papers -- but then Professor Richards starts handing them back, calling out people’s names and waving essays around, and oh right. Shit.

“Sid!” she calls, and Sid heads towards where she’s sitting, taking his essay from her and walking a few steps away before checking the grade.

It’s -- not good.

The thing is, if Sid complained about getting a C to anyone else in Phi, or on campus for that matter, they’d tell him he’s just being unrealistic. It’s not like high school -- everyone who goes here got straight As in high school, and then had to get used to getting Bs and Cs in college. It’s just the way things go. 

But Sid’s an outlier, still pulling straight As all through college, and seeing the big red grade at the top, barely still scraping into the C range, makes something turn in his stomach. He doesn’t like not doing well -- the point of him being here is to succeed, to do well. It still feels like a disappointment, and he can’t help the not so small wave of panic as he reads through the comments left in red pen.

At the end of the essay, right under the conclusion, there’s a note saying, “Make sure you come in to office hours before the next essay so we can talk over your ideas. I think it’ll help.”

Carefully Sid slides the paper into the back of his notebook, shoving it down into his backpack and heading down the stairs towards the green. He knows even as he starts the walk back to Phi that he shouldn’t spend a ton of time dwelling on one bad grade, but he can’t help it, wondering if this is the class that will break his GPA. 

He’s still thinking about it when he heads up the stairs towards his and Geno’s room, footsteps heavy enough in the hall to make the floorboards creak. When he walks in, Geno’s still up, watching something on his laptop, so Sid doesn’t feel too bad about letting his backpack hit the ground with a thump, kicking off his shoes and tossing his jacket in a random corner.

“Sid?” Geno asks, and Sid looks up to find Geno looking worried, the glow from his laptop screen making his features look strange. “Something wrong?”

“No,” Sid says, but even he admits he’s a shit liar, and the look on Geno’s face just proves that he’s not buying it. “I -- it’s not a big deal,” he continues, peeling off his t-shirt and jeans and rooting around for the old worn out shirt he sleeps in.

“Sure?” Geno asks, and when Sid glances up from changing to look at him, he finds Geno looking steadily back.

“Positive,” Sid says, dropping his phone on his desk and crawling into bed. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” Geno agrees, but he still sounds worried. Sid decides not to think about it and instead rolls over to face the wall, pulling his comforter over his head.

It hits him that it’s the longest amount of time he’s spent actually talking to Geno since practically winter break, which is just -- it sucks. Everything fucking sucks, and Sid feels awful and restless and like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s sure there’s a way to fix it, but he doesn’t fucking know how.

It takes a long time for him to fall asleep.

-

The Friday before the start of spring break, they throw together the most lackluster party of the semester. They don’t even bother to try and slap a theme together, just put out a ton of bottom shelf booze and mixers and call it good. Occasionally people trickle in from the Sig party down the street, but mostly it’s just them and some of the girls from Alpha or Theta, along with a few groups of random indie people who know one of the upperclassmen.

Of course, the hopes of it being a relatively quiet evening, frat speaking, are totally dashed when Juice and Marcel conspire to get control of the decks. Sid resigns himself to a long, long evening of Eurotrash.

Fortunately, having some Fireball mixed with hard cider not only tastes delicious, but it also takes the edge off the constant Avicii. Soon enough, Sid’s comfortably buzzed and hanging out in the corner of the living room, leaning against the wall and watching the French Canadians try to remember how to play King’s Cup, complete with lots of yelling in French. He’s honestly tired enough that he barely even registers the shouting after a while, slowly slipping into half a doze.

“Have you seen Nealer?”

Sid blinks and opens his eyes, only to find Paulie, Carhartts snapback tossed on his head and looking slightly worried, like he does whenever he hears about the pledge’s eating habits. “Nealer?” Sid repeats, just to be sure, and Paulie nods.

“I thought I’d see him, but -- I don’t know,” he says, fidgeting with the sleeves of his shirt. “It’s almost like he’s avoiding me or something.”

“You sure?” Sid asks. He knows Nealer was pretty upset after the whole Shotgun Wedding thing, but it never occurred to him that Nealer was hurt enough to ignore Paulie outright. Sid had always thought it would take Paulie doing something drastic for Nealer to not want to be around him all the fucking time, like trashing his laptop or some shit, and even then Sid isn’t sure it’d be enough.

Paulie shrugs. “Normally we’d, well…” he trails off, cheeks flushing a little, “but. I -- it’s just. You know. I haven’t seen him at all.”

“Maybe tonight’s just not a good night for it,” Sid says, as lightly as he can, but Paulie frowns.

“Nah, even then he wouldn’t just ignore me, you know? I mean -- we both know how this goes.”

“If you’re sure,” Sid says. It’s not like he can give advice about romantic shit, because he absolutely can’t, and even if he could, he’s pretty sure Nealer wouldn’t appreciate it if he told Paulie that Nealer isn’t okay with the way “this” goes.

“Oh well,” Paulie sighs, scrubbing at the back of his neck. “I guess I’ll keep looking. Thanks anyways, Cap.”

“Anytime,” Sid replies, taking a sip of his beer as Paulie turns and disappears into the crowd.

“What was that about?” Sid hears, and he turns to find Duper holding his own Solo cup, raising an eyebrow at Paulie’s back.

“Nealer’s avoiding Paulie, apparently,” Sid says, and Duper snorts.

“Seriously? What did Paulie do, kill his dog?”

Sid sighs and takes another sip of beer. “More like their whole hook up thing stopped being just a hook up thing. Well, for Nealer anyways.”

“Shocker,” Duper says, sipping his beer in a way that’s probably supposed to look sage and wise and shit. “And Nealer’s going to ignore Paulie instead of talking about it?”

“Looks like,” Sid agrees.

Duper sighs and mutters something under his breath that Sid can’t really hear over the music from the beer pong room before clapping Sid on the shoulder. “Want to join us at King’s Cup? We could use somebody to drink that monstrosity over there, since nobody’s fucking losing.”

“I don’t always lose at King’s Cup,” Sid whines, even as he follows Duper over to the middle of the living room. “It’s a game of chance! You don’t actually need skill.”

“For a game of chance, you lose a whole fucking lot,” Duper chirps, pushing him down to the floor. “Now come on, drink up, we’re almost at spring break. You can’t even bitch about hangovers.”

“Ugh,” Sid groans, but he pours some of his drink into the Solo cup and settles between Flower and Duper. “Bring it.”

-

The Monday of spring break, Sid sleeps in until nine, complete with pulling his pillow over his head and ignoring the first two times his phone alarm goes off. He figures it’s spring break -- he’s allowed. 

When he does finally roll out of bed, there’s a text from Taylor. _wish u were coming home :(_

Wincing, Sid texts back, _Sorry Taylor. Skype later today?_

ok, Taylor texts back, and Sid sighs, scrubbing a hand through his hair. It’s incredibly fluffy -- he probably needs to go get a haircut, so he looks more professional than like a scrubby college student when he has to get up and speak in front of a whole bunch of historians.

Oh god, he has to go talk to Professor Bullano about getting up and speaking in front of a whole bunch of historians. He needs to get up.

A quick shower later, Sid heads downstairs, passing through the living room where Bort is staying for the week and walking towards the kitchen. Now that he’s up, he’s fucking starving, and it’d probably be a good idea to caffeinate before he goes to talk to one of his professors.

Of course, as soon as he walks into the kitchen, he finds Geno facing away from him, apparently reading something on his phone as he eats breakfast leaning over the counter. Sid tries to quietly get around him, but the thing about their kitchen is that the cabinet doors are shit, and when he grabs a plate, the door slams shut with a bang.

Geno turns around and blinks at him, spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth. “Sid?” he asks, and Sid jumps.

“I – Geno. Hi,” he says finally, awkwardly giving a dorky half-wave before he can stop himself.

“I – I think you go to cabin with Duper. That not true?” Geno’s still holding his spoon partway, and Sid watches a Cheerio fall off and splash back into the bowl before Geno finally shoves the spoon in his mouth.

“I, no. Um. Professor Bullano asked me to stick around for a conference starting on Wednesday? So, yeah, no cabin this year,” Sid says, trying hard not to stare at Geno’s arms and failing spectacularly.

For a second, Geno just stares at him. “You not say anything,” he says, sounding slightly accusatory, and Sid winces.

“Well, um -- I kind of forgot, over winter break, and then -- well. Spring break just sort of showed up, you know?” He shrugs, palming at the back of his neck and trying not to wince. “Anyways, I just -- I have to go over to campus and figure out the schedule for the week, so. Um. See you around?”

It’s not running away. He does have to go to campus -- in an hour. He’s just going to be early. Prepared.

He realizes halfway down the street that in his rush to leave he forgot his sweatshirt in the house, but whatever. It’s not that cold out. He’ll survive.

-

Flower calls him right when Sid gets home from the last of his conference panels on Friday, his obnoxious Britney Spears ringtone blaring in the hallway. Cursing under his breath, Sid ducks into what’s either a hall closet or possibly where Tanner stores his weed paraphernalia and answers his phone, slamming the door shut behind him only to realize he forgot to hit the light switch.

“Sidney,” he hears, and he winces.

“Hi Flower,” he mumbles.

“Sidney,” Flower repeats, sounding stern, which along with the full name adds up to a double dose of terrible. “I hope you have an explanation for what’s going on in the house right now.”

“Um,” Sid says, staring at the door of the closet and wondering if there’s another way to hit the lights without leaving the closet. “Nothing?”

Flower sighs. “ _Exactly_. What the fuck, Sid? I’m getting calls from Bort, Sid. _Bort_.”

“Why is he calling you?” Sid asks, frowning at what he assumes is the wall. “He hasn’t been getting up to anything dangerous, has he?”

“No, he’s been calling because he hates silence and wants to know if Mom and Dad are mad at him. What the fuck are you and Geno doing?” Flower asks. “Are you still not talking to each other? The fuck, bro?”

Sid winces. “It’s complicated?”

“Well it fucking shouldn’t be. It’s – it’s you and Geno, for fuck’s sake. You have to talk to each other. You’re fucking attached at the hip, for fuck’s sake.”

Sid’s spine stiffens. “We talk!”

For not saying anything, Flower’s silences are pretty fucking loud.

Sid sighs. “Okay, so we don’t talk that much right now,” he says finally, “but we do – talk, I mean. When we have to. You know.”

“No, Sid, I don’t know,” Flower replies, “because when I talk to my friends, it’s because I want to. Aren’t you guys roommates? How the fuck are you cohabitating and shit when you can’t even look each other in the eye?”

“I can too look him in the eye,” Sid hisses, glaring at the wall of the closet.

“No, you fucking can’t. You guys have been fucking weird about each other since January, like one of you killed the other’s dog, or like, I don’t know. It’s like how Paulie ran into Kelli at Taqueria that one time, you know, the weird ex-hook-up thing where you can’t look at each other --”

Flower stops abruptly, and all Sid can do is stand in the closet in the dark, phone up to his ear, and not say anything -- which, with Flower, is as good as saying everything.

“Shit,” Flower says. “You and Geno totally hooked up.”

“I -- not exactly,” Sid replies, but he knows he sounds too desperate to be believable.

“No, you totally hooked up, oh my fucking god,” Flower says, voice rising slightly. “You totally got together and then -- how the fuck did you fuck that up?”

“It didn’t -- we didn’t fuck that up,” Sid says. “It was just -- we made out some at that post-finals thing, and then he -- he looked like he wanted an out, so. I gave him one.”

“Looked like he wanted an out,” Flower repeats, disbelieving. “Fuck, Sid. We all thought you and Geno would be a sure thing.”

“You all thought -- what?” Sid asks, feeling slightly panicky. Or, okay, kind of a lot panicky.

Flower half-laughs over the line. “Sid, half the frat thought you and Geno were dating last year. All the pledges _definitely_ thought you were dating. It was only when you started hanging out over at Sig with Jack all the time that any of them figured out you weren’t.” He sighs, long and tired. “You really hooked up? And none of us knew?”

“We, um. We moved to that one bathroom, downstairs, and we never -- it didn’t get to fucking, or anything. Just. You know.”

For a long while, neither of them say anything, Sid staring into the darkness of the closet and Flower doing whatever Flower does. Finally, Flower says, “So, let me get this straight -- you hook up with Geno, without fucking.”

“Yeah,” Sid confirms.

“Then, you just, what, don’t talk about it? Ever?”

“What is there to talk about?” Sid says, knowing he sounds pathetically miserable and unable to stop himself.

“Oh, I don’t know, the part where you made out with your friend, dumbass! Even if he didn’t want to -- and I’m not sure I believe that -- you still need to, I don’t know, ask how he felt about it. This whole pretending nothing happened shit -- it’s just sad, Sid.”

Sid leans against the wall of the closet, breathing in and out through his nose. “I don’t --” he starts, and then sighs. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Bullshit.” Flower’s voice is sharp, enough to make Sid jump and thunk his head on a shelf. “That’s just a fucking excuse.”

“Well maybe,” Sid replies, wincing and rubbing the back of his head, “I don’t want to, to set myself up just to fucking crash and burn. I can’t -- this can’t be another thing I fuck up. I’ve already fucking done that enough.”

Flower makes a noise, harsh and disbelieving. “This isn’t about Jack or your class or what the fuck ever, Sid. This is _Geno_. You really think you can fuck that up?”

For a long second, neither of them say anything. Sid slumps against the wall of the closet, because he doesn’t -- he doesn’t know what to say. Instead, he closes his eyes for a second, only opening them after he feels like he’s steady again.

Finally, Flower says, “Give Geno some fucking credit and talk to him. If you can’t figure your shit out, well. You’re different guys than I thought.”

Sid chews his lip, breathes in and out. “Okay,” he says, resting his head against the wall. “Okay.”

“Talk to him,” Flower repeats. “By the next time I text you, which won’t be for a while, because Vero apparently has plans involving hammocks or some shit --”

“I don’t need to know that,” Sid says, but he can’t help laughing a little breathlessly. “Thanks,” he adds.

“Figure out your shit and we’re even, Captain,” Flower replies. “I don’t like getting calls from Bort on my vacation, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sid says, “I’ll tell him to stop.”

“Fuckin a,” Flower agrees. “Later, Sid.”

“Later,” Sid replies, and Flower hangs up.

Sid gives it a few seconds, and then cautiously opens the closet door. Nobody’s around, which is great. The last thing Sid needs is Bort ruining his reputation for the other pledges and telling stories about Sid fucking hiding in coat closets. 

-

The next day, Sid gets up relatively early, sneaking past the Geno-shaped lump in the other bed and heading down towards the kitchen. When he passes by the living room and the couch that Bort’s staked out for the week, he can just barely hear voices coming from the doorway.

“-- hope they work it out soon. It’s super weird here, man,” Sid hears, and he glances around the doorframe to see Bort on the computer, staring at what looks like a Skype window.

Whoever he’s talking to must say something funny, because Bort snorts. “Yeah, no fucking kidding.” There’s a long pause, and then, “Well, you could always make it up for me.”

Whatever the other person says back has Bort smiling massively, and Sid decides that it’s best to stop creeping and head out towards the kitchen. Might as well give the kid some privacy. 

Fighting with the coffeemaker, Sid manages to finally get the thing started, picking a relatively unchipped mug out of the cabinet and leaning against the counter. Scrolling through his texts and humming softly to himself, he listens to the drip of the coffeemaker as it brews and waits.

“Sid?”

Sid starts, glancing up to find Geno, sleep-rumpled and blinking slowly as he leans against the doorframe of the kitchen. From here Sid can just barely see the outline of muscles through his thin t-shirt, basketball shorts slipping down Geno’s hips. “Geno,” he replies, aware that he’s staring and unable to stop himself. “You -- you’re up?”

“Wake up, not go back to sleep,” Geno says, voice rough as he glances around the kitchen. “You make coffee?”

“Yeah,” Sid says, a little late to respond. “You want some?”

“Please,” Geno says, voice croaking slightly.

Silently Sid grabs another mug, pouring until there’s a solid half an inch of room. Then he grabs the half and half and sugar, doctoring both of their mugs. He slides Geno’s along the counter, grabbing his own and taking a sip. 

“Early morning,” Geno says. Even the rumble of his voice is loud in the kitchen, loud enough to make Sid jump a little.

“Not too bad,” he replies, even as he stifles a yawn in the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

“You not have conference today?” Geno asks, and Sid shakes his head, taking another sip of coffee.

“No, it’s finished,” he replies, holding his cup in his hands so it warms his fingers. “I have the rest of break free.”

“Oh,” Geno says, and he looks down into his own cup like there’s something fascinating instead of Breakfast Blend, two spoonfuls of sugar, and more cream than any one person needs. It’s quiet enough that Sid can hear the humming of the refrigerator and the creak of the floor as Geno shifts his weight, and fuck, fuck this sucks. This sucks so much, and Sid doesn’t know how he’s supposed to fix it -- well, he knows, but. Having people tell him that talking will help is one thing, but actually doing it -- it’s hard, breaching a gap that never used to exist.

But then Geno makes a noise, and Sid looks over, and he’s just. He’s Geno, messy haired and sleepy eyed and smiling despite himself, and Sid misses him so much something in his chest aches.

“Want to do Maple Counter?” Sid blurts out.

Slowly, Geno looks up from his coffee cup. “What?” he asks, voice rough.

Sid bites his lip, leaning back on the kitchen counter. Finally, he manages, “Want to do Maple Counter?”

Geno blinks, staring at Sid like a deer in the headlights. Finally, after a long pause where Sid waits, heart pounding nervously for no fucking reason, he shrugs. 

“Okay.”

-

Fortunately, even in a world where Sid isn’t talking to his best friend, he’s gone the longest he’s ever gone without seeing his sister, and he’s getting the worst grade in a class he’s ever had in his life, Maple Counter will forever be a constant. 

“Y’all know what you want?” the waitress asks, and Sid and Geno both shut their menus.

“Raspberry pancake and coffee,” Geno says, sliding his menu across the table. “And he want --” Geno stops, abruptly shutting his mouth.

“Bacon pancakes and coffee,” Sid says, almost too quickly to make up for the awkwardly long pause.

“Great,” the waitress says. “I’ll be back with those coffees.”

Sid looks over at Geno, who just shrugs back, looking slightly sheepish. “Not sure if same,” Geno says quietly, half smiling. “Should’ve guessed.”

“Well, you know,” Sid says, “I stick to the stuff I know I like.”

Geno hums, but before he can reply the waitress comes back with their coffee, and whatever moment there was gets lost to their need for caffeine.

There’s a long, awkward silence while they wait for their food, Sid toying with his phone and Geno fiddling with one of the napkins. Sid wants to break it, but he’s not sure how -- everything feels weird between them, like they’re both waiting for somebody else to start talking first. 

“So,” Sid says finally, turning his coffee cup in his hand, “how have -- how have classes been going?”

Geno shrugs, and the collar of his t-shirt slides down, showing a hint of the gold chain of his necklace. It takes a few seconds for Sid to stop staring. “Fine,” Geno says, propping his elbows up on the table. “Little hard, but, always little hard. Nothing too bad.”

“That’s good,” Sid replies. “You’re just doing bio stuff this semester, right? Nothing else too weird?”

“Just major stuff,” Geno agrees with a nod. “Genetics, anatomy. Not even have to retake orgo.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Sid says, setting down his mug with a clink. “I put a lot of work into those flashcards. You think I’ll do that for you twice in a row?”

“You say you do all the work?” Geno chirps. “I one who take class.”

“Yeah, well, I’m the one who helped you study for it. You’re fucking awful at studying,” Sid shoots back, raising his eyebrows at Geno.

Geno raises his right back. “Still best,” he says, smirking a little. “Get A, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, yeah, you wouldn’t have gotten it without me,” Sid replies. “You need me, asshole.”

Geno’s smirk fades as he glances down at the tabletop. “Maybe,” he says, voice soft, and shit, shit, maybe Sid went too far.

Even as Sid opens his mouth to -- say what, he doesn’t know, but it doesn’t matter because that’s when the waitress returns with their food, setting down plates with a sunny smile. “You guys need anything else?” she asks, and both of them shake their heads, mumbling thanks before setting in.

After a few minutes where they eat, Sid looks up and finds Geno looking back. “Good, eh?” he asks, smiling around a forkful of pancake.

“Always good,” Geno agrees, quickly glancing away and stabbing a piece with his fork.

For a few more seconds, there’s nothing but silence between them. Sid takes another bite and swallows hard. If Flower were here, he’d probably tell Sid to man the fuck up already, but. Sid doesn’t really know where to start.

Finally, when Sid can’t stand the quiet, he sucks in a breath. “Look, G,” he says, watching Geno look up from his food, “I just -- I wanted to say thanks for coming out here with me. I know -- I mean, we haven’t been talking a lot lately, so, I just. Thanks for this, I guess.”

“Oh,” Geno says, blinking at Sid and swallowing down his bite of pancake.

Sid bites his lip for a second, but Geno isn’t looking away, so Sid pushes on. “And I know -- I know it’s been hard this semester, but. I want us to start hanging out again, you know? So. Yeah.”

“Can’t expect tiny pancakes to solve everything,” Geno says quietly, twisting his mouth a little and cutting his pancake with the side of his fork. 

“No,” Sid agrees, feeling kind of sheepish even as he takes a sip of his coffee. “I’m not -- I just. I figured it’d be nice. To do brunch, I mean.”

“Well,” Geno says, glancing up at Sid and half smiling. “Thank you. For invite.”

“Of course,” Sid replies. “This isn’t -- you’re my best friend, G.”

For a second, Geno doesn’t say anything. Then -- “Still your best friend?”

Sid blinks at him, aware that his mouth is slightly open and unable to close it. “Of course you are!” he says hotly, because -- because Geno will always be his best friend, even if Sid has stupid feelings for him or whatever. Geno is his -- his Geno, and not even making out and not talking can change that.

“Not sure,” Geno says. His voice has gotten quiet again, and Sid hates how it’s his fault. “Hard to tell, lately.”

“I -- of course you are,” Sid repeats, sounding like an idiot, but. Like Geno could be anything else. He’s not sure how to navigate life here without Geno always a step behind him, saying something dickish and smiling in that sly way he has, warm and solid and always at his back. Even if Sid fucks everything else up, he’s had Geno, and the last few months have proven that not having Geno just makes everything else shit. If he can help it, he wants to have Geno as long as he can. 

“Oh.” Geno stares at Sid. For a second he opens his mouth, and Sid thinks he’s about to say something -- but then he closes it again, gaze flicking back down to his plate.

Still, Sid can see a tiny smile tugging at the corner of Geno’s mouth, and -- he didn’t realize how much he missed it, missed _Geno_ , how much seeing that could ease the knot of tension that’s been sitting in his chest all year. They’re not where he wants to be -- where he hopes they can be -- but it’s better than before.

He realizes he’s staring, and carefully looks down at his own food, unable to keep a bit of a grin off his own face.

-

They get back from Maple Counter around noon or so, and when Geno troops upstairs, Sid just barely hesitates before following. If Geno looks slightly surprised when Sid rounds the corners after him, well, whatever. Flower said Sid needed to stop being a dumbass, and he figures actually heading up to his own room is a good start.

As soon as they make it up, Geno collapses on his bed, grabbing a paperback and leaning against his headboard. Sid takes his time deciding what he’s going to do -- he should probably work on some of the reading for Theories of Empire, or his history seminar on the USSR, but instead he just pulls out his phone and starts playing Candy Crush.

Once he hits level 72, he has to talk to Geno. He gets just that long.

Of course, then, somehow level 71 is easier to beat than the whole rest of the game, and he’s staring at the home screen sooner than he thought, knowing he needs to start the conversation but really, really not wanting to.

Flower would say he’s being a fucking wuss, which is -- fair. But. Fuck.

Finally, Sid swings himself into sitting up, looking over at Geno’s bed and trying not to panic. “So,” he says, feeling awkward as he sits forward on his bed, hands dangling between his knees. “I think we should -- talk, maybe.”

“Talk?” Geno repeats, setting down his book on his chest and turning his head on his pillow to look at Sid. “About what? Why?”

“Because -- it sucks not talking to you,” Sid says, wrapping his fingers around each other, clenching and unclenching his grip. “I just -- I’ve been missing you a lot this semester. And --” he pauses, glancing down before looking back at Geno’s face, “because I think we should talk about that party at the end of last semester.”

With a shrug, Geno turns back to look at the ceiling. “Was party. Nothing special,” he says, but it sounds forced, his voice too neutral to be genuine.

“No, no, it wasn’t _just_ a party,” Sid says, quick and sharp. “Look, I -- I know we never talked about it, but --”

“But what, Sid?” Geno asks, rolling over and sitting up, book falling to the floor with a thud. “Not like I not get hint. You not want to talk, so, I don’t.”

“Well, now I think we should,” Sid says a little too quickly, voice a little too high. “Because -- fuck. It did happen, we -- we fucking made out in the basement bathroom. Don’t you think we should talk about it?”

“Why?” Geno asks. He keeps looking at Sid, and Sid can’t resist the urge to swallow, to glance away. “What there to say? We make out, then you say, oh, we drunk, so. Like it not mean anything, because have too much.”

“I --” Sid stops, deliberately turning to look back at Geno, who just stares him down. “I said that, because -- I mean, we _were_ drunk! I was practically fucking falling over, and then -- that doesn’t mean it didn’t mean anything to me.”

Geno makes a scoffing noise. “Act like it,” he says, standing up and turning to fuck with the pile of papers and books on his bed like he’s organizing them, which -- Sid fucking knows he hasn’t even looked at those at all this semester, what the fuck. “If drunk, then okay if we kiss. Just fun, right? Not like mean something.” He grabs a spare piece of paper and crumples it in one hand before viciously throwing it in the trashcan. “Not like want for real.”

“But I do want it for real!”

Geno turns and stares at Sid, even as Sid stands up, taking a step across the room towards Geno. He didn’t even fucking know he was going to say that, but now that it’s out there, it’s out. “I do,” he repeats, voice softer, and his heart is pounding almost too loud for him to hear himself. “I just -- I thought you didn’t.”

There’s a long pause where Geno looks down and fiddles with the papers on his desk, running his thumb up and down the corner of one notebook, ruffling the pages. Finally, he glances up at Sid, and he looks so vulnerable that it almost hurts. “Really?”

Sid heaves out a breath, resisting the urge to shove his hands in his pockets. “Yeah.”

“But -- why talk about being drunk?” Geno asks, abandoning his papers on the desk and taking a step closer to Sid. “Why say at all? Why act like you not want it?” 

“Because I thought you didn’t!” Sid realizes he’s started waving his hands and drops them to his sides, but he can’t help balling up his fists, feeling his nails bite into his palms. “That night you looked -- god -- embarrassed. Like you didn’t want it, or you didn’t want _me_ \-- You looked at me like you wanted an out, so I gave you one.”

Geno sucks in a breath, scrubbing one hand through his hair. “Think -- think you not feel same thing, is just something you do. Think it mean nothing to you.”

“Meant nothing -- Of course it fucking meant something!” When Geno stares at him, Sid realizes he’s been gesturing again, and shoves his hands in his pockets. “It, it was _you_ , G. You always -- you mean _everything_.”

Geno stares at him, eyes wide. “I do?”

“Yeah,” Sid says. “Yeah, you -- fuck. You do.”

“Oh.” 

For a second, Sid wonders if Geno will say something, anything at all -- but then Geno smiles, and walks a little closer to Sid, enough that Sid takes a step back only to brace himself on his desk.

“Sid,” Geno says, and Sid looks up to find Geno staring down at him, eyes wide and dark. “It mean something to me.”

“What?” Sid knows he sounds stupid, but Geno’s just -- he’s so close, enough that Sid can smell his body wash, feel his heat through his t-shirt, and his head is spinning with it.

“When kiss, I never -- never think I get. So, when happen, is amazing, but.” Geno licks his lips, glancing around their room and half smiling. “Was party. You so drunk, _I_ so drunk, and I think -- maybe you regret. I never see you do thing like that.” 

He pauses, and huffs out a sigh. “Probably should have talked, later, but -- but was selfish. Didn’t want to hear that you never want, that it was mistake, so I not say anything. Then it was just hard to talk to you, because I not stop thinking about you not wanting me, and it hurt too much, so.”

Sid opens his mouth, about to say something, but Geno looks down at him and smiles again. “But now you say ‘means something’, and I think -- if I kiss you again, you not run away. Not say means nothing.”

For a second, Sid feels like he’s underwater, blood rushing in his ears as he tries to understand what he just heard. He wonders if maybe he’s dreaming, or hearing things wrong, because he swears Geno just said -- “You want to kiss me again?”

Geno’s smile is nervous and a little shaky, and Sid has to crane his neck to look him in the eye. “Yes,” Geno says, and his voice is rough like he’s been shouting along to Kanye in the basement or taking too many shots, “I always want to kiss you.” He chuckles, a little, and continues, “Want to do _lots_ of things.”

“Oh,” Sid says, because. Oh.

After a few seconds, he realizes Geno’s waiting for a reply, and so he licks his lips, clears his throat a little, tries to feel a little brave. “Well, you can. I mean, um. You can have what you want.”

“Oh,” Geno says. He’s so close that Sid can see his chest rising and falling, can hear his breaths, low and a little shaky. “Sid,” he says, and when he reaches up with one hand to cup Sid’s jaw, Sid leans in.

Kissing Geno is as good as Sid remembers, and still better. This time, the room is spinning not because Sid’s had too much beer or because the music’s pounding, but because he has Geno standing over him, thumb stroking the line of Sid’s jaw, mouth firm and hot over his. This time, Geno tastes like coffee instead of beer. This time, when Sid grabs his arms to pull him closer, it’s not because he’s off-balance, but because he wants Geno closer, as close as he possibly can get.

When Sid breaks away to catch a breath, Geno pushes a little closer, until Sid’s bumping up against his desk, almost hard enough to lose his balance. “Ow,” he complains, and Geno laughs, a little huff of air Sid can feel against his cheek.

“Sorry,” Geno apologizes, not sounding sorry at all, and then he’s turning Sid’s face, hand big and warm against Sid’s cheek. When he ducks down, Sid can feel Geno smiling against his mouth.

It doesn’t get as desperate as Sid remembers their last kiss being, none of the urgency of being drunk and music thudding in his sternum. Instead it’s a little slower, a little more careful, like they’re getting to know each other. Geno kisses Sid like he wants to map him out, to understand every single thing he can do to make Sid sigh and squirm closer and feel good, and Sid wants to be understood.

Finally, when his lips are buzzing and his mouth feels used, Sid breaks away again, pressing his forehead to Geno’s shoulder and focusing on breathing in and out, in and out. One of Geno’s hands moves to tangle in his hair, nails scratching against his scalp.

“So,” Sid says, voice rough, “we should. We should do this. For real.”

“Yes,” Geno agrees. Sid feels him ducking his head down, lips brushing against the shell of Sid’s ear. “Should definitely do.”

Sid pulls back a little so he can look Geno in the eye, even though he has to crane his neck some to do it. “Maybe slow?” he asks. “Not that I don’t want to, I just -- this semester’s been kind of a nightmare, and there’s still a lot left of it, so -- you don’t mind waiting, do you?”

“No,” Geno says, grinning a little ruefully. “Probably good to wait. Make sure we know what we doing.”

“Yeah,” Sid agrees. “Make sure we’re on the page. Maybe even talk about things.”

Geno laughs, ducking down to brush his lips against Sid’s. “No, that terrible,” he says, but he’s grinning as he says it, moving one hand to brush against Sid’s arm, fingers trailing up before closing around Sid’s bicep. “Who come up with that?”

“Flower,” Sid admits. “He said we were being idiots.” 

Geno laughs again, leaning so their foreheads touch. “I never idiot,” he says, breath warm against Sid’s cheek. “I best.”

“You sure about that?” Sid teases, even as he closes his eyes, cheeks hurting from smiling.

“Very sure,” Geno says, thumb rubbing against Sid’s arm.

“Okay,” Sid says, pressing his forehead against Geno’s. “Okay.”

-

“Hey, will everyone shut the fuck up?”

Everyone in the living room turns to look at Sid and where he’s sitting on the couch, and Sid sighs, rubbing at his forehead. Chapter meetings are always a shitshow, but this one has been particularly bad -- they were supposed to start going over things at seven thirty, but it’s almost eight and nobody’s managed to stop talking enough for Sid to bring up the agenda. 

“Listen,” Sid continues, now that he has everyone’s attention. “I just have a few things for us to go over, okay? So if you guys can fucking stay quiet for that long, that’d be great.”

“Sorry, Sid,” Tishy says, wincing, and Simon nods along with him.

“Yeah, sorry Captain,” Duper shouts from his seat by Kuni, earning himself a laugh.

Sid sighs. “Okay, listen. I promise this’ll be quick. We just have to go over our community service project in three weeks, which is absolutely mandatory.”

“Seriously, it is,” Glasser says, nodding at everyone. “I’ll hunt you all down myself.”

“So what _are_ we doing then?” Brooksie asks, still looking like he’s just rolled out of the fucking nest he’s made to write his thesis in the Quiet Room, right down to the sweatpants and the bags under his eyes.

“Want to explain, Glasser?” Sid asks, waving him up and settling back on the couch next to Geno.

Almost as soon as Sid sits back down, Glasser sets into a long explanation of how they’re planting trees, or maybe playing with kittens -- the specifics aren’t entirely clear, but Glasser’s pretty psyched, and it sounds loads better than the trail clearing they had to do Sid’s freshman year. Anyways, Sid’s kind of having trouble paying attention, because as soon as he sat down, Geno had moved the arm he had stretched along the back of the couch so his hand rested on Sid’s shoulder, and it’s just, well. It’s pretty distracting. What with Geno carefully stroking his thumb right under the sleeve of Sid’s shirt and all.

“-- so we’ll split up into two groups once we get there, but everyone has to put in five hours, right Sid?” Glasser asks, and Sid blinks, startled.

“Yeah, yeah,” he quickly agrees, feeling more relieved than he should when Glasser turns back to the rest of the frat.

A few seconds later, Geno starts moving his thumb again, and. It’s a lot.

Fortunately, for once they manage to finish up with both an agreement on who’s stuck choreographing their Greekend dance routine -- Flower is unanimously nominated, complete with a round of him cursing out everybody -- and without a massive argument about house chores, and Sid releases everyone to go off to bed or studying without feeling like they’ve wasted an hour and a half of their lives. He gets up off the couch slowly, stretching out his back and wincing when it pops. Maybe he should get back into his gym habit -- IM ultimate is coming up, and he’d like to be in shape for that.

Geno stands up after he does, and quickly gives him a tap to the shoulder, thumb brushing at his neck. When Sid glances over, Geno just smiles quick before heading upstairs, moving slow and Sunday night tired.

Before Sid can wander upstairs after him, however, Flower’s grabbing by the elbow and not-very-subtly hauling him over to one corner of the living room. “So,” he hisses as he goes, “what was that?”

“What was what?” Sid asks, blinking heavily and hoping he can manage to shake off his tiredness before tackling his readings for his History of Colonialism class.

“That thing,” Flower says, voice very low. “The thing where you and Geno touched each other. And smiled. And acted friendly.”

Sid freezes. “Um,” he manages, but he feels slow and tired and unable to say anything. “Look, we -- we talked it out.”

“Uh huh,” Flower says with a drawl. “And?”

“And,” Sid says, reaching up to push back his hair with his fingers, “we -- well. We’re figuring things out.”

“Figuring things out,” Flower repeats, raising his eyebrows. “Are you boning or not?”

Sid can practically feel himself turning bright red. “I -- we’re -- it’s not like that. Yet.”

“Yet,” Flower draws out, sounding practically gleeful. “So you’re gonna fuck, then?”

With a wince, Sid grabs Flower’s arm and pulls him in closer. “Look, just -- don’t make it a thing yet, okay? We’re just. We’re going slow, and when you need to know shit, I’ll tell you, yeah?”

Flower rolls his eyes. “You are the least fun,” he complains, but he nods. “Fine, fine, I’ll leave you alone. For now.”

Sid ignores that last part in favor of feeling relief. “Oh,” he adds quickly, “and don’t tell the other guys, yeah? We -- if something happens, we can do it ourselves. Okay?”

“Fine, fine, I won’t spill,” Flower sighs. “Now will you let go of my arm already? You’re gonna leave bruises, and the only person who gets to do that to me is Vero.”

Wrinkling his nose, Sid lets go. “I definitely didn’t need to hear that,” he whines.

Flower, the asshole, just grins at him. “You sure? I can give you tips, you know, in case you ever need to spice up --”

“Yeah, okay, I’m leaving, don’t tell me anything because I want to be able to look Vero in the eye next time I see her, bye,” Sid blurts out, turning to head up the stairs.

“Love you too, fuckface!” Flower shouts after him, but when Sid glances over his shoulder, Flower’s grinning at him. Sid can’t help smiling back.

-

Not even a week after classes start back up again, Sid runs into Jack at Safeway -- almost literally.

“Shit,” Sid curses, wincing as a couple of chip bags bite the dust. He himself almost tanks into the fancy cheese unit, but Jack grabs his arm at the last second, hauling him upright. “I -- thanks, Jack.”

“No problem,” Jack says, letting go of Sid’s arm and wincing at the mess on the floor. “I can help pick those up, if you want?”

“Thanks,” Sid says, already bending over to grab the bags of pita chips and hastily return them to their display. “Sorry about that, there.”

“Not a big deal,” Jack says, grinning at Sid a little wryly.

“So,” Sid says, wanting to head off the inevitable awkward silence before it starts, “What did you do for spring break?”

“Oh, you know,” Jack says, shrugging easily, “went home, ate too much junk food, slept too much. What about you? Did you do that cabin thing again?”

“No, actually,” Sid replies, rocking back on his heels. “I actually stayed here to help with a conference Jen -- I mean, Professor Bullano put together for the history department.”

“Wow,” Jack says, and the thing is, he actually sounds impressed. That’s the thing with Jack though -- he’s always impressed, even when maybe he shouldn’t be. “Just you in the house then?”

“No, one of the pledges stayed, and Geno,” Sid replies. He can almost feel his ears turning red as he talks, hoping Jack doesn’t notice the way his voice stuttered over Geno’s name.

Judging by the look Jack gives him, he definitely noticed. “Oh. You guys work yourselves out then?” he asks, and the thing is, he doesn’t even sound mad, or upset, even when Sid almost wishes he would. Instead he sounds genuinely interested, like he cares about the answer.

“I,” Sid starts, pushing back his hair and unable to keep a bit of a grin off his face, “yeah. Yeah, we did.”

Jack smiles at him, and Sid knows that it’s one hundred percent genuine. “That’s really good to hear, Sid,” he says, leaning against his shopping cart.

“I -- thanks,” Sid replies. “I -- it means a lot, for you to think that.”

“Well,” Jack says, “I’m happy for you guys. See you in class, Sid.”

He turns to go down the dairy aisle, but before he knows what he’s doing, Sid reaches out to stop him. “Wait, Jack,” he says, stepping forward. “I -- do you want to catch up sometime? Maybe coffee or beer or something? You can --” He pauses, trying to think of the right words. “You can call it an apology, for how shitty I was earlier.”

Jack looks at him, but he doesn’t turn away, and Sid takes it as a reason to keep going. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but, I mean, I was definitely an asshole to you earlier this year, and I don’t -- I want to make it up to you. And apologize a lot.”

Jack blinks at him, and then his smile reappears again, big and crinkly eyed, like Sid remembers from freshman year. “Yeah?” he asks, and Sid nods back.

“Yeah,” he repeats. “I wouldn’t want to lose one of my best friends by being a dumbass, so. Apology drinks?”

Jack reaches over and gives him a gentle punch to the shoulder. “Yeah, Sid,” he says, “we can do that.”

“Good,” Sid says, smiling at Jack. “Good.” He takes a step back and gives Jack half a wave. “See you in class.”

“See you,” Jack replies, grinning back and disappearing down the dairy aisle. Sid turns on his heel and heads for the produce aisle, feeling a little lighter.

-

The problem with the first few weeks after spring break is that suddenly everything in the world starts being due. Half the time Sid thinks that there’s some sort of professorial conspiracy to make sure that everyone remembers just how shitty school can be right after vacation, because almost immediately after they start up again, he has a massive research paper and an assload of readings to do, and he barely even has time to sleep, let alone hang out with any of the guys.

Or Geno, but. They’re taking things slow for this exact reason, and if Sid sometimes thinks about what exactly they’ll do _after_ they’re done taking things slow, it’s totally fine. He’s pretty sure it’s allowed when you’re tentatively dating someone.

Still, it’s a bit of a surprise when about two hours after dinner, Sid comes downstairs from a marathon reading session to find almost the entire frat downstairs, milling around the kitchen area and getting pretty loud for a Tuesday night -- in March, no less.

“Tequila Tuesday!” Tanner says, handing out shot glasses like candy and waving everyone towards the kitchen. “No exceptions, Sid! I know you did your homework like a good boy!”

“Fuck you,” Sid replies, but he takes a shot glass anyways, hanging back a bit to let the pledges go first.

Suddenly someone has his elbow in a death grip, dragging him forward into the kitchen. “The man said no exceptions,” Tanger says cheerfully, pulling Sid along and pushing aside freshmen as he goes. “No exceptions means body shots for presidents!”

“Or we could not,” Sid offers, because, well. Body shots are all messy, and unhygenic, and undignified, and really, what are they even doing them for?

“Or we could, Debbie Downer,” Tanger says, and he and Tanner laugh. “Come on, Olli’s already done like two, are you going to let the pledges outdrink you?”

“No,” Sid says, even though he’s older, and mature, and not supposed to let stupid jibes rile him up so that body shots look like a good idea. Except, well, fuck them, he can totally do more shots than Olli, what the fuck. Olli’s like an infant, Sid will totally win.

Sid’s three shots in and only feeling a little wasted when he spies Geno walking into the kitchen, suspiciously upright and not drunk-looking. “G!” he says, probably too enthusiastically, but nobody seems to notice except for Duper, who doesn’t even say anything, despite the fact that Sid knows he’s a nosy fuck.

“Hey Sid,” Geno says, slipping past the French Canadians and ending up right by Sid. “What you guys doing?”

“Body shots,” Sid says, waving his shot glass in Geno’s face. “You should do it too! We have to beat the rookies, you know?”

“Thought Sid not like body shots,” Geno says.

Sid shrugs back at him. “Like them now,” he says. There’s a bit of salt left on his thumb left over from the last shot, and so he sucks it off.

Geno makes a choked noise.

Looking up at Geno under his lashes, Sid pops his thumb out of his mouth. Geno keeps staring at him, eyes going from Sid’s hand to his mouth, and oh.

Sid licks his lips, and Geno reaches out to grab his elbow. By the look on his face, he didn’t even mean to, which, well. That’s okay.

“You should do body shots with me,” Sid repeats, and licks his lips again, just because.

“Okay,” Geno says. He sounds strangled.

“Hey, Tanger!” Sid shouts, turning to look over his shoulder at where Tanger is distributing tequila like a benevolent god of bad decisions. “G’s doing some too.”

“Is he?” Duper asks, and Sid turns a little further to stick his tongue out at Duper.

“Duh,” he says, “I asked.”

Somehow, acquiring the tequila involves going around the kitchen corner to the corner by the window, where overenthusiastic pledges can’t fuck up the shot process. Sid snags them a bowl of lime wedges and a salt shaker, while Geno adamantly refuses to let him carry the tequila.

“You spill,” he says, setting the fifth down on the counter and leaning in to talk to Sid, even though the music isn’t that loud.

“Wouldn’t,” Sid retorts, setting up their shot glasses. “Okay, you go first. You need to get on my level.” 

Geno just raises an eyebrow at him. He looks like a fucking dumbass, and the longer he does it, the less Sid can hold back on his giggles.

“Okay,” Geno says. He’s still holding onto Sid’s arm, fingers around Sid’s bicep. “I do, then we do, yes?”

Sid hums his agreement, watching Geno pour his shot and shake salt onto the back of his hand. “Cheers,” he says, and Geno holds up the shot glass, right before leaning down to lick up the salt.

When he throws the shot back, Sid stares at his neck, long and pale. He wants to lick it.

“One,” Sid hears, and he blinks, looking back at Geno’s face. Geno’s smirking at him, shaking the shot glass in Sid’s face. “Maybe need to do more, just to catch up.”

“Maybe you should,” Sid agrees. He can’t stop staring at the way Geno looks in his tight v-neck, the little bit of gold chain he can see on Geno’s collarbones. Geno has good collarbones.

Shit, Sid forgot what tequila does to him.

Geno grins, and downs another shot, looking at Sid from under his lashes. It feels ten degrees warmer in the kitchen, even though Sid isn’t really near anyone but Geno, and Sid can’t stop looking at Geno’s mouth.

“Ready?” he asks, voice a little rough. Geno smirks at him.

“Only if you are,” he says.

Sid pours both of their shots, slopping some of the tequila out and onto his wrist. “Oops,” he says, a laugh bubbling up in his chest, and he carefully licks the tequila off, looking at Geno out of the corner of his eye.

Geno stares back, gaze hot. It makes Sid’s skin feel tight, buzzing slightly, even though Geno isn’t even touching him.

“Wrists or neck?” Sid asks, and Geno looks around them. Most of the pledges and underclassmen are occupied, but Duper’s definitely keeping an eye on them, and Tanger’s looking slightly suspicious as well.

“Wrist,” Geno says firmly, and Sid nods. 

“Right,” he says, lifting his left wrist and licking the skin, just once, before grabbing the salt shaker. As he shakes out the salt, he watches Geno do the same from under his lashes, and when Geno holds out his wrist, Sid pours some on him too.

Still holding his wrist out in front of him, Geno grabs his shot. “Me first?” he asks, and before Sid can even say anything, he’s already leaning down.

Geno’s mouth is hot on Sid’s wrist, and Sid freezes, pinned in place. Even when Geno straightens to tip back his shot, he still holds onto Sid, thumb pressing down against the bone as he pops a lime wedge in his mouth. It makes it hard for Sid to keep his focus -- he wants to stare at Geno’s mouth, at how red his lips are, at where Geno’s hand is circling his wrist and holding on.

“Sid,” Geno says, and Sid blinks, glancing up to find Geno looking back. His mouth is slightly open and his eyes are dark and when he licks his lips, Sid just. He wants.

“You good?” Geno asks, and Sid startles a little. “Or tequila already getting to you? Should call you Captain Lightweight.”

“Fuck off,” Sid says, grabbing his shot from the counter. “I’m not a lightweight.”

When he leans over to lick the salt off Geno’s wrist, he makes sure to look up through his eyelashes. He can almost see Geno swallow.

The shot hits him hard, warming up his stomach almost as much as Geno’s grip on his arm. Sucking on the lime wedge, he raises his eyebrows at Geno right before popping it out into his palm. “See? Still got it,” he says.

“Right,” Geno replies, still staring at him. “Definitely got it.” His gaze is hot and steady, and Sid can almost feel the weight of it against his chest. It makes his skin feel tight and warm, almost sparking, and combined with the tequila, it just makes him want.

He’s about to be stupid and careless and drag Geno off to their room, going slow be damned, when Nealer suddenly appears and grabs their tequila. Of fucking course.

“What the fuck, Lazy,” Geno snaps, trying to wrestle the bottle back, but Nealer just clings, taking one long pull before setting it down on the counter. He barely even remembers to pop a lime wedge in his mouth, and even when he tosses it in the bowl they’re nominally using for compost, he still looks like he want another shot. Or three.

“The fuck was that, Nealer?” Sid asks, bracing himself against the counter with one hip, and Nealer turns to wince at him, running one hand through his hair and making it stand straight up thanks to all the weird shit he uses and leaves all around the communal bathrooms.

“Paulie’s looking for me,” he mutters, looking around the counter presumably for an actual shot glass. “So -- you can just tell him I’m not here, right?”

“Not like you hiding,” Geno admonishes, but Nealer just gives him a look.

“I’ll use you for cover, you fucking -- giant-ass tree, just, don’t let him see me, okay? I don’t -- I’m not talking to him.”

“Um,” Sid starts, looking around, because Paulie’s definitely in the kitchen doorway talking to Kuni, but Nealer just ignores him.

“I just can’t right now, okay? So. You gotta cover me.”

“Can’t cover if he right there,” Geno says, in a surprisingly reasonable tone considering all of their levels of mildly shitfaced-ness.

The face Nealer sees Paulie is something -- well. Sid didn’t know faces could do that. “Shit,” Nealer hisses, stumbling to stand behind Geno. “I’m just gonna go, yeah? Don’t -- don’t tell him where I went.”

“Nealer,” Sid starts, because what little restraint he has left is slipping and he’d much rather not get dragged into this, but Nealer just widens his eyes at him and mimes zipping his lips. Well, his nose, but coordination isn’t exactly in great supply right now.

“I’m going, okay? Just -- bye, Captain, G,” he says, stumbling out behind them and slipping out the door.

As soon as he leaves, Geno shifts to face Sid, both of them leaning against the counter. One of his hands settles on settles low on Sid’s hip, just out of sight for any meddling French Canadians. “Stupid,” he says, voice low and rumbling.

“Yeah,” Sid agrees, tilting his chin so he can look Geno in the eye. “They just -- you know. Need to not be stupid.”

“Wow,” Geno says dryly, “you one to talk.”

“Hey!” Sid replies, reaching to push against Geno’s shoulder. “We figured it out.”

“Yeah,” Geno says, and his eyes are dark and hot again, a small smile on his face. “We much smarter.”

“Yeah,” Sid says stupidly, the heat of the tequila and the room and Geno making him feel loose, making him want to get a little closer. “Yeah, for sure.”

“Maybe,” Geno mutters, voice so low Sid almost feels it rather than hears it, “we prove we smarter?”

For a long moment, Sid thinks about it. On the one hand, the tequila and the way he can feel Geno’s heat all up against him says yes, but on the other hand, he knows Geno has an 8 AM lecture, and he has to lead discussion in his seminar, which means they both really need to sleep instead of anything else.

“Can’t,” he sighs, turning a little in Geno’s hold and resting his forehead on Geno’s shoulder. “You have class, remember? And I have to lead discussion. We’d better just sleep it off.”

From his resting place on Geno’s shoulder he can feel Geno heave a sigh. “Guess we did say we go slow,” he admits reluctantly, and Sid can almost hear his pout. “Want to, though?”

“Yeah,” Sid mumbles, “I -- of course I do, just. Not on a Tuesday night, yeah?”

“Fine, fine,” Geno says, but when Sid pulls back to look at him, Geno’s grinning down at him. “We wait.”

“Just until it’s a little less crazy,” Sid agrees, and Geno’s grip tightens on his hip.

“Then we do,” he says, voice low and full of promise, and Sid nods quickly.

“Yeah,” he says, biting his lip. “Soon.”

Geno’s fingers are going to leave bruises on his hips if he keeps this up.

Slowly, very slowly, Sid takes a step back. “So,” he says, trying hard to enunciate, “we should go to bed. Not like that,” he adds quickly, when Geno looks like he’s just about to make an awful innuendo. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Geno sighs, finally letting go of Sid and bringing his hand back to his side. As soon as he does, Sid misses the contact.

“So,” Sid says, “I’m gonna -- go.”

“Okay,” Geno repeats, smiling a little.

“Right now,” Sid adds, even though he’d really rather not. He’d much rather stay down here with G, or better yet, go upstairs with Geno -- but. He said bed, and he’s going to get there. Anytime now.

“Okay,” Geno says a third time, and he’s definitely laughing at Sid now, even though his gaze is still pretty heated.

“Bye,” Sid blurts out, and finally he manages to take a step back and turn to leave the kitchen. Even as he goes, he thinks he can feel Geno looking at him, and it makes Sid wish soon would come just a little bit faster.

-

It’s late Wednesday night when Sid finally emerges out of the library, brain feeling stupid and slow after hours of reading John Stuart Mill and comprehending almost none of it. If nothing else he finished his response paper, and even though he feels like he got run over by a truck, it does mean that once he gets back to the house, he can collapse on his bed and sleep. It’s a nice walk back, at least, the sky clear and the moon shining, and the nighttime chill in April is far more livable than it is in March.

The house is weirdly quiet when he makes it back to Frat Row. Most of the windows are dim and there isn’t any weird glitch step pumping out of any windows, which means most of the frat has to be sleeping. Sid checks his watch, and the neon green numbers inform him that it’s currently 12:35, which, well, explains a lot. As he heads up the porch steps and fumbles with the front door lock pad, it takes almost all of his willpower to stifle a yawn.

Coming through the living room he finds Nealer spread out on the long couch, feet hanging over one armrest and one hand dangling towards the floor. Sid glances at the TV, but it’s tuned to some random baseball game, nothing really interesting. “Hey Nealer,” he says, waving a little.

“Hey,” Nealer says back, sounding tired.

“You okay?” Sid asks, but Nealer just shrugs back at him, gaze flicking back to the TV.

Sid sighs, and troops on.

When he makes it to the kitchen, he finds a sink full of dirty dishes and Paulie leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed as he looks out and down the hall. From here the living room is just barely visible, and when Sid looks, he can see the top of Nealer’s head peeking out over the couch.

“Hey Paulie,” Sid says, and Paulie jumps a little.

“Hey,” he says back, uncrossing his arms to wave. “How was the library?”

“Fine,” Sid replies, shrugging. He steps past Paulie to set his bag down on one of the kitchen stools, pulling out his tupperware and tumbler so he can wash them -- though judging by the pile of dishes they can’t run through the industrial dishwasher sitting in the sink like a super gross Leaning Tower of Pisa, he has his work cut out for him. “What’re you doing?”

“Oh,” Paulie says, blinking rapidly. “I was going to tackle those dishes, but, um. I got distracted.”

Sid nods. “Gotcha,” he says.

Paulie just nods, already staring back at the living room, which -- it’s just kind of. Sad.

“You could try talking to him,” he offers.

Paulie glances at him, eyes wide, before shrugging and huffing out a breath. “About what?” he says. “I’m not even sure what I did -- or how to fix it.”

“Maybe that’s why you should try talking,” Sid says, shrugging when Paulie looks at him. “You guys did a lot of shit without talking about it, and look at where it got you. Might be worth a try, yeah?”

Paulie snorts, scrubbing his hair with one hand. “Not sure how I feel about getting advice on this shit from you, Captain,” he says, smiling a little. “Kind of weird, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sid admits, leaning against the counter. “I mean, I’m not saying I know shit, but. I’d rather you guys were talking to each other than not, you know?”

“I know,” Paulie says. “I --” He pauses, looking back out of the doorway, back towards where Nealer is still sacked out on the couch. “I just. I don’t even know where to start.”

“How you feel tends to work pretty okay,” Sid says. “Just from personal experience and all.”

Paulie smiles again, a little sheepish, a little hopeful. “Right,” he says finally, “got it.”

When he doesn’t move to go, Sid waves a hand at him. “I got the dishes. Don’t worry about it.”

“Thanks,” Paulie replies, rubbing at the back of his neck and leaving the kitchen doorway.

Sid waits until he hears low voices to pop in his earbuds and get to work on the dishes. He figures he can wait a while, maybe twenty minutes or so, and then go back through to get upstairs. That’ll give them enough time to work their shit out, and then he can finally fucking go to bed.

Doing the dishes is surprisingly soothing, even though his brothers are unsurprisingly messy as fuck and can’t keep anything clean for shit. Still, Sid kills at least half an album scrubbing out pans and drying everything, carefully putting things away so Dana won’t yell about the state of the kitchen when he comes in tomorrow afternoon. Once he’s finished up his tupperware and tumbler, setting them on the counter to air dry, Sid stops humming under his breath to Taylor Swift and takes out one earbud. There aren’t any noises coming from the living room, talking or otherwise, so Sid takes it as a sign that the coast is clear. Grabbing his bag, he carefully, quietly walks down the hall to the living room, only to stop in the doorway.

At first, he thinks he’s interrupting something, because Nealer’s definitely on top of Paulie, sprawled over his lap. Then he realizes neither of them are really moving, so he steps closer, just to get a better look.

Both of them are totally asleep, not even reacting to the sound of the baseball announcer celebrating a run as the TV continues to play in the background. Nealer has his face tucked into Paulie’s neck, hands clutching Paulie’s shirt, and Paulie’s just as bad, one hand shoved up the back of Nealer’s sweatshirt and the other tangled in Nealer’s hair.

It’s stupid. Both of them are going to have sore backs and will probably get woken up by Duper thanks to his 8 AM Bio lecture, but. It’s also incredibly sweet.

Halfway up the stairs, Sid sneaks another look at them over his shoulder, and can’t help smiling.

Amazingly Geno’s already passed out when he makes it upstairs, but he stirs a little when Sid shuts the door. “Sid?” he mumbles, and Sid drops his bag by the door, unable to keep from smiling.

“Hey G,” he says, stepping closer. “Go back to sleep, yeah?”

Geno nods sleepily, face cracking in a smile. It’s huge and goofy and sweet, and Sid’s so busy staring at him that he almost misses him saying, “Night, Sid.”

“Night, G,” Sid replies, something in his ribcage clenching, and before he can chicken out, he leans over to brush a kiss against Geno’s forehead, quick and soft.

Geno hums, and it settles under Sid’s skin. He’s still smiling when he falls asleep.

-

April means plenty of things -- rain, for one, and an exploding population of baby ducklings, for another. For Phi, it means the annual Earth Day party, an affair consisting of tons of sod getting laid down in the basement so everyone can get drunk and dance barefoot, all in the name of environmentalism, or something.

Mostly, it’s the party that Glasser always takes full responsibility for, which means that for once, Sid can just drink, ignore the finals he has looming in the future, and appreciate a really fucking good party.

“Happy early Earth Day!” Suttsy shouts from the decks, and everyone in the basement cheers back, hands in the air and feet in the grass.

Sid sighs happily -- finally, he doesn’t have to worry about logistics or whether someone is going to fall off the roof. Instead, he can dig his toes into the sod, take one last gulp of his beer, and not think of anything at all.

A hand, warm and broad, slips under his shirt to rest on his stomach, and Sid turns slightly to find Geno smiling at him. “You happy?” Geno asks, leaning down to talk directly in Sid’s ear, close enough for Sid to feel just how warm he is.

“I don’t have to worry about anything,” Sid replies, leaning back a little and finding Geno’s chest, solid and broad, behind him. “If anyone fucks up, it is officially not my problem.”

“Officially, huh?” Geno repeats, using the hand on Sid’s stomach to tug Sid back, taking Sid’s weight like it’s easy. “So, you free for night?”

“Yep,” Sid says, popping the p.

Sid can feel the vibrations of Geno laughing against his back, even as Geno slings his other arm around Sid’s waist, pulling him so they’re flush. “Good,” Geno says, mouth close to Sid’s ear. “Get to keep you then.”

“Oh,” Sid says. As what Geno just says hits him, he shudders a little. “Yeah. You -- yeah.”

Geno starts to say something else, but just then, Suttsy puts on Rihanna, and, well, like Sid can just ignore a Rihanna song. It’s _Rihanna_.

“Make me feel like I’m the only girl in the world --” he sings along, horribly out of key, before dropping his hands to rest on top of Geno’s. He tips his head back a little so it bumps against Geno’s shoulder and half says, half shouts, “We should stay and dance, though. Just for a little bit.”

“A little bit,” Geno agrees, his grip tightening on Sid’s hips, hot against Sid’s skin.

Sid doesn’t know how long they stay down there, the songs fading into each other as the party goes on, grass soft and damp under his feet. In the dark of the basement, tucked away in their back corner, it’s easy for Sid to close his eyes and ignore everything but the feeling of Geno up against him and the music thudding in his skull and sternum, the bass making his ribs shudder and shake. They fall into a rhythm and it’s easy, so easy, hips going back and forth, Geno’s fingers flexing and tightening where they’re resting right on Sid’s hipbones. Sid can feel Geno’s breath against the skin of his neck, his nose behind Sid’s ear.

The song changes, something thick and slow and loud, and Geno’s so warm and so close, and the buzzing under Sid’s skin wherever he’s touching Geno is getting harder and harder to put off, harder and harder to ignore. He doesn’t want to ignore it anymore.

Sid tips his head, turning his face so his mouth is practically kissing Geno’s neck when he talks. “Geno,” he says, and maybe he should feel bad about how thready his voice sounds, but he doesn’t at all.

“Sid,” Geno replies, sounding desperate, and fuck, okay, fuck, they’ve waited long enough.

As the music thuds in his ears, Sid threads his fingers through Geno’s and tightens his grip. He can feel Geno nodding, and then they aren’t dancing anymore.

Geno has to let go of one of Sid’s hands, but it’s only so he can lead Sid off the dance floor, tugging him along. They weave through the groups of people, past Alphas and Kappas and their fellow Phis, feet getting muddy from sod and spilled beer, and Sid doesn’t care about anything but the iron grip Geno has on his hand.

When they finally make it to the stairs out of the basement, Sid nearly brings them both down by tripping over the pile of shoes left by the bar. “Fuck,” he shouts, even as Geno reaches out to steady him, pulling him back to his feet.

“You not too drunk, right?” Geno asks, looking at Sid worriedly, and Sid shakes his head.

“No,” he says, but Geno is still looking a little worried, eyes huge in the dark, and abruptly Sid realizes what Geno’s trying to get at. “No, I -- I want this, Geno. Not that I wouldn’t if I were drunk, but -- I want it.”

Geno’s smile is huge and brilliant. “Good,” he says, and fuck, it’s all Sid can do not to kiss him right there, all of his worries about putting on a show or getting shit from the other Phis disappearing in the face of Geno’s grin.

“Come on,” he says instead, pulling on where they’re still holding hands, “upstairs.”

“Right,” Geno says, laughing a little, “upstairs.”

Getting all the way up to their room is its own struggle, especially since the frat is fucking packed. Somehow Sid’s forgotten how popular Earth Party is, because it feels like half of campus is crammed into their house, spilling out of doorways and loudly yelling at each other over the music thumping and floating up from the basement. At least four people try to stop them on their way just from the basement stairs to the main house stairs, shouting hellos and asking where the keg is. Sid does his best to blow them off politely, but to be honest he’s not exactly thinking about much more than Geno, and upstairs, and what will hopefully happen once they get there.

“Sid,” Sid hears, and he glances over his shoulder to see Paulie and Tanger, both of them clearly staring at where he and Geno holding hands. “What --”

“Talk to you later,” Sid says as firmly as possible.

Tanger looks like he’s just about to protest that when Geno looks back at him and Paulie. “Later,” Geno repeats, and the expression on his face is somewhere between slightly terrifying and totally hot.

Well, okay, it’s pretty much all totally hot, but Sid will admit he’s biased.

“See you,” Sid says, and then whatever amount he cared about what Tanger and Paulie think disappears because Geno’s pulling him over to the stairs, and that’s much more important.

They finally make it up to the third floor when Sid just can’t hold back his laughter. “Did you see Tanger’s face?” he asks in between giggles.

Geno laughs, leading Sid down the hall towards their room. “Look so confused,” he says, grinning at Sid over his shoulder. “You get text soon, I think.”

“Whatever,” Sid declares, trying to catch his breath even as he keeps laughing. “I’ll just turn my phone off. No interruptions.”

At that, Geno’s gaze sharpens. The way he looks at Sid is all focus, eyes hot and dark, and Sid shivers. “No interruptions,” he repeats, and shit, he’s so -- Geno’s so --

Sid surges forward and kisses him.

Geno instantly grabs his arms, steadying Sid against him even as he opens his mouth to kiss back. There’s a few seconds of getting reaquainted, where Sid has to see if Geno still likes having the soft hair at the nape of his neck tugged, if he still likes when Sid gets a hand up his shirt to grab at his shoulders. Judging by the soft groaning noise Geno makes and the way his grip on Sid’s arm tightens, he does, and when Geno licks into his mouth, Sid just hums happily even as he sucks on Geno’s tongue. 

It’s only when the doorknob is punching into the small of Sid’s back that Sid gets jolted out of the happy haze of kissing Geno, and he pulls away. Geno makes a wounded noise and leans back in, but Sid shakes his head.

That, of course, gets Geno pulling back at breakneck speed. “No?” he asks, looking worried, and Sid blinks.

“No -- I mean, yes -- I mean, more kissing, yes, but, um. We should probably like, get to our room? And not be in the hall.”

“You start it,” Geno replies, but he looks relieved, stepping in close again even as he reaches behind Sid to fumble with the doorknob.

“Well,” Sid says, trying to defend himself even as Geno steps closer, grumbling as the doorknob refuses to turn, “you were just -- you know, you’re so --”

“Yes, I know, I too much for you,” Geno teases, but he’s also breathing rapidly, which, Sid can’t help feeling a tiny bit of pride, because he did that.

And then the door suddenly bursts open, and Sid isn’t feeling anything but a dull sort of pain from falling back on his ass.

“Sid?” Geno leans down, looking worried. “Sid, you okay?”

“I,” Sid starts, but he doesn’t think he’s actually hurt -- just sort of sore and embarrassed, because, really, tripping over the fucking doorjam? That’s a freshman move. “I’m fine, G.”

“Sure?” Geno asks, leaning closer, and, well, that gives Sid an idea.

“Well, you’re really far away, but,” he says, reaching up to grab at the hem of Geno’s shirt and giving it a tug. As he predicted, Geno overbalances, tripping and basically collapsing right on top of Sid. It drives all the breath out of Sid, but whatever, he can take it. “Problem solved,” Sid gasps out, half laughing.

For a second Geno doesn’t say anything, but then he just starts laughing, fighting to resettle himself on top of Sid and not doing very well at it. “You an idiot,” he says, but he sounds fond, and it makes Sid’s cheeks feel warm even as he laughs.

Then he moves one of his thighs between Sid’s, and fuck, Sid’s not laughing now.

“Geno,” he says, or gasps, grinding his hips up. “Geno, get down here.”

Geno makes a low noise and does, bracing his elbows by Sid’s ears so he can kiss Sid, shoving his thigh further down, and fuck, Sid can feel his dick through his jeans against his hip. He moans into Geno’s mouth, hands scrabbling to find places to hold onto Geno, to make sure he doesn’t get up, because the pressure of Geno’s thigh is perfect and the warmth of Geno’s body is perfect and Geno is perfect.

Sid doesn’t know how long they spend on the floor, Geno’s weight pressing him into the hardwood as he leaves trails of sloppy kisses up and down Sid’s neck. For his part Sid’s happy to be there, happy to have Geno heavy and solid on top of him, real and _there_. It’s everything Sid’s been wanting for who the fuck knows how long, and he’s going to fucking relish it.

“So,” Geno says in between doing something with his teeth to Sid’s neck that makes Sid groan and getting his hand up under Sid’s shirt, “what you want?”

Sid blinks, feeling kiss-stupid, brain running twice as slow. “What?” he asks.

Geno laughs, and the sound vibrates into Sid’s skin, making him giggle. “What you want?” he repeats, even as he gets his hand up higher against Sid’s chest, one thumb brushing against Sid’s nipple, which is like, totally foul play or something.

“I,” Sid starts, even as his brain struggles to catch up, what with Geno doing all this stuff to him that’s definitely unfair. “I mean, you could fuck me.”

Geno groans, a low sound that goes straight to Sid’s dick. “Fuck,” he bites out, even as he leans down to actually bite at Sid’s collarbone, where the collar of his shirt exposes it.

“Or,” Sid gasps, hands scrabbling up and down Geno’s back, “I could -- fuck, I could blow you G --”

“ _Shit_ ,” Geno moans. He shifts to rest his weight on one elbow, staring at Sid, wide-eyed. “You -- you want?”

“Yeah,” Sid says, because he _does_ want, enough to make his mouth water. All traces of the beer he had earlier are gone, leaving him suddenly clear-headed and focused. “We should -- fuck, just. Get naked, yeah?”

“Bossy,” Geno says, but not like it’s a bad thing. Shifting back up onto his knees, he pulls off his t-shirt, revealing his chest. Sid can’t help staring -- it’s like, fuck, a porno or something, Geno stripping down and staring at him, hair wild and eyes huge and mouth incredibly red.

“Pants too,” Sid says, getting up onto his elbows.

Geno rolls his eyes. “You get naked too,” he says, even as he shifts so Sid’s leg isn’t trapped under him. “Not fair if just me.”

“Fine,” Sid says, like it’s a hardship, but he can’t help laughing anyways, even as he pulls his shirt over his head and gets his shorts off as fast as possible.

When he looks up, Geno’s completely naked, and --

Sid just has to stare, okay, because -- fuck. Geno’s already a lot, already so much for Sid to handle, but seeing him like this, naked and waiting, it’s just, it’s a lot. Sid lets himself stare, looking at Geno’s chest, his arms, his legs, his -- fuck, his dick.

Geno’s dick is huge and pink, curving up towards his stomach. Sid wants to get his mouth on it.

“Lie down,” he says, as firmly as he can, even he walks on his knees to settle between Geno’s thighs.

“On the floor? Not very patient,” Geno says, even as he goes, spreading his legs so Sid can go between them.

“Whatever,” Sid says, because fuck, he’s not patient. “Just let me suck your fucking dick.”

“Bossy,” Geno says again, but then he’s cut off, because that’s when Sid gets the head of his dick in his mouth.

As soon as Sid starts, licking at the tip and sucking down, Geno’s hands settle heavily in his hair, fingers gripping tight. Sid hums, settling himself down, the only thing between him and the floor his boxers. He could be good -- he knows how to blow people, knows how to make it good, make it last, but it’s not what he wants.

He’s waited a long fucking time to see Geno come apart. Fuck being patient.

It’s not exactly the best head he’s given -- he’s sloppy with being tipsy, spit getting everywhere as he bobs his head up and down, but Geno’s into it, choking out things in English and then in Russian above Sid’s head. Geno’s hot and heavy in his mouth, hips grinding up until Sid slings an arm over them, and all the while Geno’s hand holds Sid down, pulling Sid’s hair, just a little. Even as Sid sucks him down, he feels his skin get hot and tight, and he can’t help hitching his hips against the floor, not even giving a shit about his boxers or the fact that they didn’t even make it to a bed.

“Shit,” Geno mumbles as Sid comes off his dick with a pop, licking around the head before taking him down again, “Sid, you so -- Sid, _Sid_.”

Sid hums, and Geno’s hand tightens in his hair, and that’s the only warning Sid gets before Geno’s coming in his mouth.

He swallows what he can, pulling off Geno’s dick and licking the head clean before getting the last of it off his own lips. Geno’s still saying something, his hand heavy against his head, and after a few seconds one of them moves to grab at Sid’s shoulder.

“Sid,” Geno says, pulling Sid up until he can settle over Geno. Geno’s arms wrap around his back, one of them stroking Sid’s spine, the other shifting to reach into Sid’s boxers.

When Geno’s fingers brush against Sid’s dick, hard and dripping in his boxers, Sid can’t help whining into Geno’s shoulder. “Come on,” he says, hips hitching forward, “just, come on --”

“Shh,” Geno shushes, the hand on his back rubbing up and down even as he wraps his fingers around Sid’s dick. “Got you, Sid.”

It doesn’t take long until Sid’s shaking against him, head tucked into Geno’s neck and fingers grabbing at Geno’s ribs. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chants, coming all over Geno’s hand.

For a few seconds, they just rest there, Geno’s hand still stroking Sid’s back, Sid panting against Geno’s neck. The noise of the party downstairs is just barely audible now, random shouts breaking through even as Geno sweeps his fingers up and down Sid’s back.

“So,” Sid mumbles, lips moving against Geno’s neck, “maybe we should move to a bed.”

When Geno laughs, Sid can feel it under his hands. “Just little bit impatient,” he says, moving his hand up to pet Sid’s hair. “Otherwise, I fuck you in bed.”

“You still could,” Sid offers.

He can feel the shudder that gets, Geno’s fingers tightening in his hair. “You want?” Geno asks.

Sid nods against his chest. “Not like, right away,” he says, tilting his face so he can see Geno a little better. “But -- you know.”

“Oh,” Geno says. “Then -- yes. We do.”

Slowly, and with a whole lot of effort, Sid manages to push himself up to sitting, scrubbing at his hair with one hand. His boxers are disgusting, which just figures, so he shimmies out of them as best he can, only making a few grossed out faces.

“So picky,” Geno says, grinning at him even as he pushes himself into sitting up and then getting all the way off the floor. “Hate mess.”

“Whatever,” Sid says, rolling his eyes even as he takes Geno’s hand to get up to standing. “You going to make fun of me, or are you going to kiss me more?”

Geno licks his lips, eyes dark as he looks at Sid. “Not do both?” he asks, poking his tongue out between his teeth even as he pushes Sid towards his bed.

“You dick,” Sid says, but he can’t keep his fondness out of his voice, grabbing at Geno’s shoulders so he falls on top of Sid again. He’s fast discovering how much he likes the weight of Geno over him, how much he likes Geno pushing him down, steadying him. “You only get one.”

Geno grins at him, stroking his thumb down Sid’s jaw. “Just one?” he asks. “Hard choice. Not sure which I want.”

“ _Dick_ ,” Sid repeats, thumping his heel against the back of Geno’s calf. 

“Best,” Geno says, even as he ducks down to kiss Sid again.

Sid doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of kissing Geno. Every second Geno does something tiny that Sid can’t help focusing on -- the tiny movement of his thumb against Sid’s jaw, the way he sucks on Sid’s lip, the tiny bite of teeth as he pulls away. He swallows down all of Sid’s noises, tongue sweeping through Sid’s mouth and free hand brushing against Sid’s ribs. Sid tries to give back as good as he gets, kissing back hard and sure, pulling Geno firmly on top of him, wanting to feel his weight.

It’s easy to lose track of time, kissing until Sid’s lips buzz and his heart is racing again. He doesn’t know how long it takes to get hard again -- he feels warm and on edge the entire time, partially because of what they’re doing, but mostly because it’s Geno. Everything feels good with him.

“Hey,” Geno says, minutes or hours later, Sid doesn’t know and definitely doesn’t care, “you still want?”

“What?” Sid asks, feeling turned on and stupid with it.

“When you say, could fuck you,” Geno says, looking at Sid. He’s chewing his lips, which are already pink and abused, and fuck, Sid wants to do that. “Still want?”

“I --” Sid says, still processing -- and then it hits him what Geno’s asking, and the arousal curling in his stomach burns even hotter. “Yeah. Yeah, fuck, Geno, if you want to, I --”

“Oh,” Geno says, grinning at him. “Good. That -- that good.”

“Good,” Sid repeats stupidly. Then, he realizes that now that Geno’s talking about fucking him, he really, really doesn’t want to wait. “So, you going to get on that? Or --”

“No, no, think make you wait,” Geno teases, even as he pushes himself up onto his elbows so he can reach into his nightstand. “Say and not do, very funny --”

“Stop, asshole,” Sid says, using his grip on Geno’s shoulder to pull him back. “Come on and fucking fuck me, yeah?”

“Need to learn patience,” Geno says, grinning at Sid even as he drops the condom and lube next to Sid’s head, cracking open the bottle and coating his fingers. “Too impatient, not get reward.”

“Whatever, dickface, just fuck me, yeah?” Sid replies, spreading open his knees and planting his heels.

Geno grabs a pillow and folds it in half, shoving it under Sid’s hips. “Maybe not if you call me names,” he says, settling himself between Sid’s legs. “Not want to do.”

“Don’t you dare,” Sid snaps, hitching his hips a little higher. “Don’t you fucking -- _fuck_!”

Geno grins at him smugly as Sid adjusts to the first finger, slowly rocking it in and out. “What you say?”

“Just keep going,” Sid grits out, latching one of his hands around Geno’s free arm, the other one going up to grab at his own hair, just to ground him a little. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Geno agrees, grinning at Sid before adding a second finger.

Sid loses time again, not sure how long he sends hitching up his hips towards Geno’s hand, getting harder and harder as Geno twists and scissors his fingers. Geno doesn’t look as smug anymore, mouth dropping open, wet and pink and tragically too far for Sid to kiss quite yet. Every movement of Geno’s fingers feels like a big deal, and Sid knows he’s being loud and not exactly a good bro, but he can’t exactly bring himself to care. Paulie can just sleep somewhere else if he doesn’t like it.

Finally, Sid feels like it’s been long enough, or maybe he just can’t wait any longer. Either way, he can’t help groaning as he thumps his heel against the small of Geno’s back. “Come on, G -- fuck me already.”

Geno’s fingers still, which is exactly what Sid doesn’t want. “You ready?” he asks.

Sid rolls his eyes. “Come on,” he repeats, looking up at Geno through his lashes. “I want it, yeah? I’m ready. Get your fucking dick in me already.”

“So romantic,” Geno admonishes, but he takes out his fingers, reaching over Sid to grab the condom. Sid watches as he rips open the foil, rolling the condom down his dick and slicking it up.

Sid can just feel the head of Geno’s dick nudging at his hole when Geno stops, looking down at Sid. “Sure?”

In response, Sid moves his hands to grab at Geno’s shoulders. “Fuck me,” he says, as insistently as he knows how.

Geno grins at him. “Okay,” he says, and pushes in.

It feels good. That’s the only thing Sid can think as Geno settles inside him with a groan, stretching him open. There’s a couple moments where Geno just waits, letting both of them adjust, and Sid can feel his heartbeat kicking up again, something sticking in his throat. It feels --

“Fuck,” Geno says, and Sid nods.

“Yeah,” he agrees, breath coming out of him in one huge exhale. “Yeah.”

“Ready?” Geno asks, and Sid wraps his legs around Geno’s back.

“Come on,” he says, pulling Geno as close as he can. “Come on, G.”

Geno smiles at him, and then starts to thrust.

If before felt good, this feels better. Sid doesn’t know how long he’s idly thought about Geno fucking him before pushing it away, but having the real thing is infinitely better. Geno fucks hard and fast, leaning over Sid, breath harsh in his ear. It’s still sloppy, not always in sync, but it feels good all the same just because it’s happening, and Sid’s sure they’ll get there eventually.

Then Geno changes the angle just a little, and Sid changes his mind. Everything feels _amazing_.

“Fuck,” he groans, grabbing at Geno’s back and probably leaving marks, “fuck, Geno, do that again.”

Geno nods, and mumbles something, and does, and -- fuck. It’s hard to think anymore, hard to do anything anymore except let Geno fuck him, and so Sid closes his eyes and holds on for the ride.

At some point, Geno moves one of his hands to wrap around Sid’s dick, and even the lightest touch of his fingers makes Sid groan, tossing his head back. “Fuck,” he mumbles, fingers tightening against Geno’s shoulders.

“Gonna come for me again?” Geno asks, head dropping so he’s whispering into Sid’s ear. “Not take long last time. Same this time?”

“G,” Sid mumbles, even as Geno does something with his thumb to the head of Sid’s dick that makes Sid’s spine light up. “G, you --”

“Sid,” Geno says, jerking Sid off steadily, and it’s just -- Sid can’t hold on. Mumbling a curse into Geno’s neck, he comes all over them both. Sid’s still coming down from the high when Geno’s rhythm falters, and just a few thrusts later, he stops and shudders, collapsing on top of Sid as he comes.

For a long minutes, they just breathe, breaths unsteady as Geno pants against Sid’s neck and Sid tries to get his heartbeat to steady. Then, slowly, Geno pulls out, even as Sid grimaces.

“Sorry, sorry,” Geno apologizes, brushing back Sid’s hair right before pulling off the condom, tying it off and tossing it in the general direction of the trash.

“You should pick that up,” Sid mumbles, suddenly exhausted.

“Tomorrow,” Geno mutters back, grabbing some tissues off his desk and wiping them both off before tossing that too towards the trash can.

“And that,” Sid says, and Geno groans.

“Bossy, bossy,” he says, grabbing the comforter and pulling it up before crawling back over Sid and shoving his face into Sid’s neck. “Nothing I do is good.”

“That was good, though,” Sid says quickly, automatically wrapping his arms around Geno.

He can feel Geno smile against his neck. “We good,” he says, lips brushing against Sid’s skin. “We best,” and then his breath steadies out.

“Yeah,” Sid breathes, tightening his grip around Geno’s shoulders.

Sid falls asleep smiling.

-

After the Earth Day party, Sid feels like there’s barely a reprieve until things start piling up again -- on top of final papers and projects coming up, there’s also fucking Greekend coming up, complete with free dinners to organize, puff football to play, and, of course, dance contests to win. It feels like no time’s passed at all before Greekend becomes the main topic at dinner, chapter, and every time Sid sees someone in the house, even though it’s three weeks away.

They’re hanging out after dinner on Thursday night when Greekend gets brought up yet again, and if Sid wasn’t thinking about it before, the look in Kuni’s eyes makes it clear that he should have been, probably weeks ago.

“We need a plan of attack,” Kuni says, flattening his palms on the dinner table and staring everyone down in a way that promises swift and terrible retribution if anyone decides not to give one hundred percent. Clearly whoever named him “Honey Badger” had their shit together. “This is my last Greekend, and I want to win.”

“Jesus,” Nealer mutters. Everyone ignores him.

“Well,” Sid says, folding his arms, “I have a research paper due right before Greekend, so, you guys are on your own for planning shit.”

“This for Empire?” Geno asks, nudging his thigh with one hand under the table.

Sid turns to look at him and can’t help smiling. “Yeah,” he says, sighing a little. “It’s gonna suck, but I talked a lot to Professor Richards during office hours, and Jack said he’d help with finding me some sources to look into.”

“Good,” Geno says, grinning back. “Not stuck in library all day. Boring.”

“ _Anyways_ ,” Duper says, banging his cup on the table and making Sid jump, “ignoring you two lovey-dovey assholes --”

“You real asshole,” Geno says, earning himself a snort from Kuni.

“-- we need a baller soundtrack for the dance contest, because that is what’s going to win us this whole thing,” Duper continues, even as he flips Geno off. “Everyone knows Kappa can’t dance for shit and the Betas always do some weirdass routine, so as long as we don’t show up drunk off our asses and look coordinated, we can win this fucker.”

“What about Lambda?” Bort asks.

Kuni rolls his eyes. “If we lose to Lambda, I’m disowning all of you.”

“Can you disown us?” Beau asks, taking a sip of juice and frowning. “We aren’t exactly related to you.”

“Trust me,” Kuni says, eyeballing each of them, “I will find a way.”

“Jesus,” Nealer repeats, and this time he gets a rabbit punch to the shoulder from Paulie. “What? Kuni, you’re fucking terrifying.”

“Whatever it takes to win,” Kuni says serenely. 

Silently, Sid agrees with Nealer.

“Any-fucking-ways, who did we pick to be the poor sap to choreograph this shit?” Duper asks, setting his glass down on the table with a clunk and looking over at Sid.

“I think Flower?” Sid offers. He knows he sounds distracted, but Geno’s doing something with the hand on his thigh that requires pretty much all of his attention, and he doesn’t have any to spare for Duper’s whatever.

At the sound of Duper’s not very subtle coughing, Sid looks up to find Duper -- and, well, everyone -- rolling his eyes. “Look, I’m happy you guys have your shit together, but also, you’re disgusting,” Duper says, wrinkling his nose. “Nobody should look that happy.”

“Fuck off, Duper,” Geno says easily, squeezing right above Sid’s knee.

“Gross,” Duper says, right before continuing, “Anyways, I’ll send Flower some music, and he can come up with some killer dance moves, and then we’ll be set, yeah? You’d trust Flower, wouldn’t you, Kuni?

Kuni shrugs. “Flower, yes,” he says, “but you jokers -- no. Everybody better be on top of this, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sid says with a nod. “And on that note, I have to go study.”

“Study, my ass,” Duper shouts, even as Nealer bursts out laughing. Sid flips them both off as he stands up, extracting himself from the bench and heading for the stairs.

“No, my ass,” Geno says, and even though Sid can’t see them, he can just picture Duper’s face and can’t help giggling.

“You’re such a douche,” he tells Geno as Geno catches up to him, following him up the stairs.

“Only say because you like,” Geno says, reaching out with one hand to palm Sid’s hip, making Sid almost trip up the steps. Sid bats back at his hands, trying to keep his balance as he heads upstairs.

“I really do have to study,” Sid tells him as they walk towards their room. “Finals and stuff, you know?”

“I know,” Geno says, practically herding Sid into the room, because he’s an enormous asshole who likes to push people around and not because Sid likes it. He definitely doesn’t like it. Nope. “That what study breaks are for, yes?”

Sid rolls his eyes, but turns around to peck Geno on the cheek. “Maybe,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “But you have to do some studying too. I don’t want to deal with your bitching about your tests.”

Huffing out a breath, Geno collapses onto his bed. “You worst,” he says, pouting enormously at Sid. “Make me suffer.”

Sid grins at him. “I’ll make it up to you in an hour.”

“Worst,” Geno repeats, but he smiles at Sid, and Sid grins back before turning to his essay on the events leading up to World War I.

-

Three weeks later, Sid’s standing backstage before the Greekend dance contest, wishing that he could wear a shirt, when Flower sidles up to him, crossing his arms and frowning.

“You know what we should be having right now? Sangria,” Flower says, nodding resolutely, and Sid groans.

“No, we shouldn’t,” he says, folding his arms right back. “We’re about to go on stage!”

“All the babies have been doing shots! I have a bottle right there, Sid. Right there. And sangria has like, fruit in it. That makes it better,” Flower hisses.

Sid glances over at the freshmen, where there is indeed a flask being passed around while Beau hums Beyonce. It’s off-key and terrible and kind of endearing.

“You not want drink?” Sid hears, and by the arm dropping around his shoulders, he knows it’s Geno.

Flower grins. “G! Great. Help me out, Sid doesn’t want sangria because he’s boring and terrible and doesn’t realize that the only way he’ll be coordinated enough to win is if he’s tipsy.”

“I’m not -- fine,” Sid hisses, rolling his eyes. “One swig. And then we’re out there, yeah?”

“You’re the best, Sid,” Flower says, beaming as he goes off to grab the sangria.

With a sigh, Sid leans back into Geno’s grip, tilting his head up. “We’re going to be ridiculous,” he says, biting his lip. “Who let Duper choose the music?”

“Duper,” Geno says, smiling down at Sid. “Look okay from here.”

“You say that because you aren’t doing it,” Sid counters, rolling his eyes. “We should be calling _you_ Lazy.”

“No, Lazy over there, being bad influence,” Geno replies, nodding over to where Nealer is, true to form, talking excitedly at Bort and Simon. Though, Sid notes happily, he’s also holding hands with Paulie. “I best. We best.”

“Even if we lose?” Sid asks, and Geno smiles at him.

“Even then, we best. Though, try to beat Lambda. They suck.”

“Okay,” Sid says, even as Flower runs up with the bottle of sangria and takes a healthy swig. “I’ll try very hard.”

Flower passes him the bottle, and Sid takes a long sip, wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand before passing it to Geno. “Ready for this, Captain?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Sid says as dryly as possible. “How about you, Mr. Choreographer?”

“Fuck off,” Flower snaps back, “my dance moves are sick and you know it.” He snags the bottle back from Geno and takes a last swig of sangria before setting it down on one of the tables backstage. “Alright, Captain, let’s get this fucking show on the road.”

As he turns to go, Geno grabs his wrist, pulling him back closer. “I cheer loud, so better be best,” he says, grinning at Sid, and Sid grins back.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, kissing Geno as quick as he can, “we’re always best.”

Then, he turns to the rest of the frat. “Ready to win this thing?” he asks. Everybody nods, and Sid grins at them all. “Great. Alright, Phi, let’s fucking go!”

When he gets out on stage, he can see Geno in the wings, grinning at him. Sid smiles back, calming down his nerves, and gets ready to lead his brothers to victory.


End file.
